Testing Kiosk Apps

ChromeOS Kiosk Apps have a few basic requirements in order to test the applications:

• A Chrome Enterprise Domain (Find out how to get one here⁠⁠)
• A Chromebook (or a ChromeOS Flex device⁠⁠) that can be enterprise enrolled to your domain
• A web app that can be accessed across the web (if you want one for testing, try this site)

The first steps for testing your application is to set up your Chrome Enterprise Domain to have a test Organizational Unit associated with it. This can be done by going to admin.google.com⁠⁠ in a browser window and logging in with your administrator account and creating a new organizational unit⁠⁠.

Then, from the admin console, you will need to go to Devices > Chrome > Apps & Extensions > Kiosks and select your newly created Organizational Unit in the left hand pane. From this section you can select what kiosk applications you would like to deploy to ChromeOS devices in that organizational unit by clicking on the yellow floating action button in the lower right hand corner.

Since you are deploying a Progressive Web Application (PWA), you should select the top globe icon. This icon will allow you to paste the URL of a PWA and have it deployed to ChromeOS devices as a kiosk application.

You should now see your kiosk application listed in your organizational unit with some extra kiosk settings that can be managed. See this document⁠⁠ for more information on what those specific settings do.

The app is now set to “installed” but not it’s not set to be launched automatically on enterprise enrolled devices. This allows you to continue to use the ChromeOS device as usual with a normal boot and login sequence and then selectively launch kiosk apps, ideal for testing. To launch it, click the apps icon in the bottom left corner of the login screen on the ChromeOS device.

Now that you have the Chrome Admin console configured, it is time to enterprise enroll your Chromebook and then assign that Chromebook to the organizational unit. This document⁠⁠ provides the most up to date information on enrolling a ChromeOS device. After your device is enrolled, visiting Devices > Chrome > Devices will provide the opportunity to move the device to the organizational unit that you originally configured kiosk mode for. This then provides the Apps icon as in the figure above. If you do not see the Apps icon, login to the ChromeOS device and visit chrome://policy and click the Reload Policies button to reload the policies, then logout of the device. You should see the apps button appear. Otherwise, you can set the app to autolaunch in the Chrome Admin Console.