Set up Room Mode
Lock a classroom tablet to one room so any teacher can take attendance, log activities and check the care board under their own name, with an admin-password exit.
Room Mode turns a tablet into a shared station for one classroom. Any teacher in the room can pick it up and check children in and out, log the day (meals, naps, diapers, photos and more), and glance at the care board. Every entry goes under the name of the teacher who did it. Nobody signs in or out of the tablet; it stays in Room Mode until an admin exits with a password.
Room Mode is different from Kiosk Mode. A kiosk sits at your door for parents to check in. Room Mode lives inside one room for staff. The two can run on separate tablets at the same time.
What a Room Mode tablet does
The tablet has up to three tabs along the top:
- Attendance (where it opens): check children in or out, mark them absent, and move them to another room for the day. Select lets you act on several children at once.
- Log activity: pick a tile (Meal, Snack, Nap, Diaper, Bottle, Potty, Note, Photo, Activity, plus any tiles your center added), pick the children, add notes or photos, and save.
- Care board: who's due a diaper, bottle or nap, for rooms where the care board is on. See Set up the care board.
Start Room Mode on the tablet
Only owners and center admins can start Room Mode. Do it on the tablet that will stay in the room.
From the web dashboard
- Sign in at
https://nestlicare.comas an owner or center admin. - In the sidebar, click Organization → Room Mode.
- Pick the center the tablet belongs to. This step is skipped if you have one center.
- Pick the room the tablet will live in.
- Confirm with Start Room Mode. The tablet switches to the fullscreen Room Mode screen.
From the iPhone or Android app
- Open the NestliCare app and sign in as an owner or center admin.
- On the Dashboard, make sure a single center is picked.
- Tap the Room Mode tile.
- Pick the room. The app switches to fullscreen Room Mode.
Who's using this tablet?
The first time a teacher checks a child in or logs something, the tablet asks Who's using this tablet? They tap their name once. After that, every check-in, move and log goes under their name, and parents and admins see "Maria Santos logged nap", not "Room Mode".
The name stays at the top of the screen. The next teacher taps it to switch to themselves. If nobody touches the tablet for 10 minutes, it forgets the name and asks again. A half-finished log resets after about 90 seconds without a tap.
Attach photos
On the iPhone and Android apps, tap Add photo on a log step, then Take Photo for the camera or Choose from Library for a photo already on the tablet. The first time on Android, the tablet asks for camera permission. Allow it once and it sticks.
Exit Room Mode
- Tap Exit (with the lock icon) at the top.
- Enter an admin email and password.
- The tablet returns to the normal sign-in or admin view.
Without an admin password, the tablet stays in Room Mode, so a curious child or parent can't get into your dashboard. To move a tablet to a different room, exit and start Room Mode again with the new room. A tablet is locked to one room at a time.
What the tablet can and can't reach
- It can check children in and out, mark them absent, move children and staff in and out of its own room, log activities and meals, and show the care board, all for its one room.
- It can't open billing, family records, staff records or other rooms.
- Exiting needs a real admin email and password, checked by the server.
- Room Mode tablets don't appear in your Staff list and aren't counted as employees.
What to mount it to
- Wall mount or counter stand: out of reach of toddlers, in reach of teachers.
- Charge-through case: Room Mode tablets stay on all day.
- Auto-lock off while plugged in: set this in the tablet's own settings. NestliCare doesn't change the tablet's screen timeout.
Troubleshooting
The Room Mode tile isn't on my app Dashboard. It only shows for owners and center admins, and only once a single center is picked at the top of the Dashboard.
No rooms appear in the room picker. The center has no active rooms yet. Add one under Organization → Rooms → Add Room first.
An entry went under the wrong teacher. The name on an entry can't be changed afterwards. An admin can delete the entry, then log it again on the tablet after tapping the right name at the top. To avoid it, teachers should check the name at the top before logging.
"Take Photo" does nothing on Android. The tablet hasn't been given camera permission, or the prompt was dismissed. Open Android Settings → Apps → NestliCare → Permissions → Camera and set it to Allow.
The tablet left Room Mode. Start it again from Organization → Room Mode or the app's Room Mode tile.
A teacher needs to work in a different room. The tablet stays locked to its room. Use the tablet in the other room, or the teacher can use their own NestliCare app, where they can switch between every room at their center.
I want to stop using Room Mode at a center. Exit on every tablet that's running it. There's no separate switch to turn it off.