How do I use Beacons?

Beacons are a great way to automate your status updates with Simple In/Out. Beacons require use of your location in the background as well as Bluetooth. Don't worry, it won't use any extra battery and we NEVER store or use your location. We rely on the automatic updates the system provides just from keeping your phone connected to cellular and WiFi connections to update your status.

To use Beacons, open Simple In/Out, tap on the Settings tab, and select Automatic Status Updates. From here you can enable Automatic Updates. If this is your first time using Simple In/Out, you will be prompted to grant permission to use your location. You will need to say yes for Beacons to work correctly. If you say no, you can always open the phone's settings and change the permission if you want to use Beacons.

Once you have enabled Automatic Updates, tap on Beacons to view the available Beacons for your company.

The list view will show all available Beacons you can enable. Tap on the Beacon in the list to drill in to the detail view. To turn the Beacon on, tap the Enable this Beacon switch. You can also set a custom status message to apply to your status comment when the Beacon updates your status. This can be helpful if you don't want to use the default comments. (e.g. In at Beacon Name or Left Beacon Name) Once you have enabled the Beacon, you can tap the back button to exit this view and go back to the list of Beacon. Repeat for as many Beacons that you need to enable. You can also use the "enable all" button in the header to turn everything on at once. Once they are all on, you can use the same button to "disable all". On iOS, There is a restriction of 20 Beacons that can be enabled at once. This is a hardware restriction set by Apple and can not be changed.

Status updates occur when you cross in or out of the range of the Beacon. Sometimes it can take a little time or distance to ensure you have fully left a location before your status will update. Beacons usually take about 20-30 seconds after leaving range to change your status to out. Status updates occur almost instantly when you arrive. Once you have things configured correctly, you shouldn't need to think about your status updates as they will change automatically as you come and go.