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Live updates, offline, privacy and accessibility

For owners, managers, desk staff and customers who want to know what they can rely on: what stays live, what carries on through a dropped connection, who sees your details, and how the screens are made easy to read and use.

How screens stay up to date#

Every Line Me Up screen is live. When someone joins a line, a desk calls the next person, a visit is completed or someone is moved, every screen that shows it changes by itself within seconds: the Live board, the Waitlist, every Workboard, the TV in the waiting room, and the customer's own ticket. Nobody needs to press refresh.

Each person only receives updates about lines they are allowed to see. A manager who has been given two lines hears about those two; a customer hears about their own visit.

The Live indicator in the staff app#

The header of the staff app says in words whether what you are looking at is live. It shows one of three things:

On a phone-sized screen the indicator shows only its icon; the word is still read out to anyone using a screen reader. On the Workboard it shows nothing at all while everything is live, so the screen you look at all day stays clear. It only appears when something is wrong.

The customer's ticket#

A customer's ticket updates by itself while the page is open: how many people are ahead, the estimated wait, and the number being served now. If it hears nothing for about 45 seconds, for example in a lift or a basement, it says Live updates unavailable — this may be out of date. and keeps showing the last numbers it knew. It keeps trying by itself, and the message goes away when it catches up. When the live connection cannot be made at all, the ticket checks for changes every 15 seconds instead.

If a part of a customer screen cannot load, that part says so, for example Couldn't load your visit. Check your connection, then reload., with a Reload button. The rest of the screen keeps working.

When the internet drops at a desk#

Line Me Up runs in a browser and needs the internet to work. It is not an offline app. What it does do is carry a desk through a short drop, such as a router restarting or a phone moving between rooms, without losing what you pressed and without ever calling one customer to two desks.

What you can still do#

While the connection is down, the Workboard says Reconnecting — showing the line as it last was. You can still finish with the person in front of you:

• They're here — the person you called has arrived.
• Complete — you have finished serving them.
• No-show — they did not come.

These are kept on your device and the screen moves on at once. The banner counts them: Reconnecting — 2 changes waiting to sync. When the connection returns they are sent in the order you pressed them, and the banner goes away.

What waits for the connection#

Call Next is paused while you are offline. The button says Offline — can't call next, because calling someone needs a connection, so two desks can't be given the same person. In the same way you will see Offline — can't call again and Offline — can't send for calling someone a second time and for sending them on to another service. All of these come back by themselves when the connection does.

If the Wi-Fi drops in the middle of a visit:

1. Carry on serving the person in front of you.
2. Press They're here, Complete or No-show as usual. The Workboard moves on and counts the change as waiting to sync.
3. Do not reload the page. Leave it open until the banner disappears.
4. When the connection is back, the changes are sent. Call Next works again, and you can call the next person.

If a change does not go through#

Occasionally a change made offline can no longer be applied, for example because a colleague already moved that customer while you were disconnected. The Workboard then names the token, so you know whom to check:

• Complete for A-014 did not go through — the desk may have already moved them.
• No-show for A-014 could not be sent. Check the board.

Open the Live board or the Waitlist, find the token, and put it right from there.

Your desk is held for you#

A desk that stops reporting in is not taken away straight away. If you have nobody called or in service, your desk is freed for others after about a minute and a half of silence, so the line is not stuck behind an empty desk. If you do have someone called or being served, your desk and that person are held for you for ten minutes, so a dropped connection does not hand your customer to somebody else.

If the drop lasts longer than that, the Workboard says Your desk was released while you were away and gives the time. Anyone you had already started serving is set aside for you, never given to whoever takes the desk next.

To take back a customer after your desk was released:

1. Open Work my desk and start your shift again.
2. Press Reclaim with the customer's name on it. They are back with you in one tap, as long as nobody else has taken them in the meantime.

When a TV loses its connection#

A paired TV is built to run on its own all day. It keeps its screen awake, and if the live connection drops it says Reconnecting — checking for calls every 10 seconds and keeps checking by itself. With no internet at all it says Offline — showing the last calls. When it comes back it catches up quietly: calls it missed while it was away appear on screen without being announced late.

On Displays in the staff app, each TV is marked Online or Offline, with when it was last seen. Offline usually means the TV is switched off or has lost its Wi-Fi. It comes back by itself: nobody needs to pair it again. A TV stays paired for 90 days from the last time it was on; one left unplugged longer than that shows a new pairing code.

Why the desk never waits#

At a busy counter, every second spent looking at a spinner is a second a customer waits. So the Workboard does not wait for Line Me Up to answer before it moves on: press Complete and the screen changes at once, with an Undo for a few seconds in case you pressed it by mistake. If Line Me Up then refuses the change, for instance because a colleague acted first, the screen puts it back and tells you why.

The same idea runs through the apps. Screens and sheets load only when you open them, and a part that fails to load fails on its own, with a Reload button, rather than taking the whole screen down. The page a customer sees after scanning a poster is kept small: we test that someone who has never used Line Me Up can read a line's page in under three seconds on a deliberately slowed mobile connection. That is a test result, not a promise about every phone and every network.

Who can see what#

Line Me Up keeps each person's view to what they need.

A business sees what a customer gave it, or what its desk recorded: a name if there is one, the phone number, the service chosen, its own file number and notes, and that customer's visits with it. It sees nothing about other businesses the customer has used, not even that they used one.

If a business connects its own systems to Line Me Up, those systems receive the name, phone number and visit details each time a visit changes. What they keep is then the business's, under its own privacy policy.

What Line Me Up stores#

About customers#

• Phone number — to hold a place from your own phone and to sign you in.
• Name — optional, so staff can call you by name instead of a number.
• Email — optional, and only if you give one.
• What you came for — the service you chose, if the place offers a choice.
• Your visits — which business, which line, when you joined and when you were served.

Line Me Up does not ask for your address, date of birth, ID or the reason for your visit. A customer never pays Line Me Up, so no card or payment details are held.

Near me in the directory uses your phone's position only to sort places by distance. It is rounded to about 110 metres before it leaves your phone and is not stored. A business's exact position is never sent to your phone, only how far away it is.

About businesses and staff#

The business's details, the lines, desks and services it sets up, its staff accounts (name, email, an optional phone number), and the record of its visits. The staff app may record how its screens are used, including what is on them, so faults can be found and fixed. The privacy policy lists every service we use and what each receives.

Keeping accounts safe#

• Ticket links are secret. A customer's ticket link carries a long random secret, not the token number, so nobody can find someone's ticket by guessing A-015. A wrong link shows nothing.
• Passwords and codes are never stored readable. Staff passwords, sign-in codes, sessions and ticket secrets are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form.
• Sign-ins are protected. Repeated failed attempts are slowed down, and a wrong email gets the same answer as a wrong password, so nobody can use the sign-in page to find out who works where. A customer's sign-in code expires after five minutes and stops working after three wrong guesses.
• Sessions can't be read by other pages. Your session is held in a cookie that pages cannot read, and it is replaced every time it is used.
• Each kind of user has its own pass. A staff sign-in, a customer sign-in and a paired TV are kept apart: one cannot be used where another belongs. A TV never holds a staff password.

Sign out of every device#

If you lose a phone, or signed in on a shared computer, you can end every session at once from any device you are still signed in on.

In the staff app:

1. Open Your account (your name at the foot of the sidebar).
2. Under Your sessions, press Sign out on every device.

In the customer app:

1. Tap the Account tab.
2. Press Sign out on every device.

You are signed out here and everywhere else you were still signed in.

Staff passwords#

A new team member is given a temporary password by the owner, shown once. Until they choose their own, the staff app reminds them: You are using a temporary password. Choose your own below — the one you were given was shown once and nobody can look it up for you. A password needs at least 8 characters. If someone forgets theirs, an owner gives them a new temporary one from Team. Staff sign in with an email and password; there is no two-step sign-in or company single sign-on.

Delete an account#

As a customer#

1. Tap the Account tab.
2. Press Delete my account.
3. Read the warning, then press Yes, delete my account, or Keep my account to stop.

Your name, number and email are removed and you are signed out everywhere. The visits you have made stay with the businesses that served you, without your name on them, because a business must be able to account for its own day. Signing in again with the same number starts a new account.

As a member of staff#

1. Open Your account.
2. Under Leave this business, press Delete my account.
3. Press Yes, delete my account, or Keep my account to stop.

You are signed out and cannot sign in again. Your email and phone number are removed. Your name stays on the record of the work you did, which belongs to the business. Only an owner can add you back.

To stop someone signing in without deleting anything, an owner can switch them off on Team with Deactivate. Everything they did stays, and they can be reactivated later. Nobody can deactivate themselves.

Accessibility#

Line Me Up is used by people of every age, on old phones, in bright waiting rooms and at busy counters. The apps are checked against WCAG 2.1 AA rules on every release: every main staff and customer screen, including open sheets, is scanned automatically, and a serious problem stops the release. That checks a lot, but not everything, and we do not claim the product is certified.

Reading and seeing#

• Never colour alone. Every status has a word and an icon as well as a colour, so a board still reads in greyscale or to someone who cannot tell red from green.
• Contrast is checked. Text meets a 4.5 to 1 contrast ratio in the light theme, the dark theme and on TV pages.
• Bright and clear for customers. The customer app has one bright, high-contrast light theme.
• Light or dark for staff. The staff app can be Light, Dark or Same as this device. The choice is kept on each device, so a dark screen at the front desk does not follow you home.
• Your own language. Both apps and the TV are available in eight languages, and each person chooses their own. Language names are shown in their own script, so you can find yours even on a screen you cannot read. Tokens always use ordinary digits so the phone, the slip and the TV match.

Touch, keyboard and screen readers#

• Big targets. Everything a customer can tap is at least 44 pixels across, and the desk's main button is twice that height.
• Keyboard. The staff app can be used without a mouse. When a new page opens, focus moves to its title. Press Ctrl + K (⌘ + K on a Mac) to jump to any screen, or to find a person or token on the Waitlist.
• Screen readers hear changes. A customer's ticket, the notifications and the Live board's summary announce changes politely, without interrupting what is being read. Charts in Insights are described in words.
• Less motion. If your phone or computer is set to reduce motion, animations are switched off.
• No surprise zoom. Text boxes are large enough that an iPhone does not zoom in when you tap one.
• Heard as well as seen. A TV can play a chime and read the called token aloud in the page's language. Spoken calls depend on the voices the TV has, and fall back to English.