Posts Tagged ‘access control’

You’ll like this! Cisco Meraki WiFi with Facebook Login

Update: Cisco Meraki WiFi with Facebook Login is now part of Cisco Meraki CMX. Learn more about CMX here.

A quick show of hands, please: how many of you are running guest WiFi for your organization? Free WiFi is now available in coffee shops, hotel lobbies, hospital waiting rooms, and retail locations across the country. These days, customers check for — and expect — wireless access.

Cisco Meraki already provides an intuitive, easy-to-configure solution for secure guest WiFi that many customers have deployed. But what if you want to provide a more seamless sign-on experience, or increase brand exposure via your guest access deployment?

Now you can do all of this, thanks to Cisco Meraki Presence, a suite of cloud-based location analytics and engagement features which includes Cisco Meraki WiFi with Facebook Login.  This feature lets your customers connect to WiFi by checking in on Facebook, using your organization’s Facebook Page as a splash page.

Update: Cisco Meraki Presence is now known as CMX (Connected Mobile Experiences), a comprehensive location analytics and engagement platform ideal for both cloud-managed or on-premise solutions. Click here to learn more.

Why this is awesome

Here are some benefits: first, you get access to aggregate and anonymous demographic data Facebook provides about your Page and on check-ins — statistics like the age and gender of those groups of people connecting. This helps you understand more about your audience, which can help you tailor customer experience and advertisements. For example, what if you’re a coffee shop and discover that the majority of your customers are women in their 30s? Maybe you make some changes to your coffee and food menu, or tune the type of music playing in your shops, or update the content of your Facebook Page to better suit their tastes.

When guests check in on Facebook, a story may post to their News Feed, viewable by their Facebook friends. People can see that their friend visited your location and “like” this story, thereby promoting your organization with virtual word-of-mouth recognition. And if friends of your guest are close by, they now know about your business and may decide to visit as well.

 FB Check in Blurred PM

Facebook News Feed event generated by WiFi with Facebook login.

Finally, you can provide an intuitive, convenient experience for guests trying to access WiFi — a smoother process than having guests ask a barista, lobby clerk, or employee for an access code and typing that into a splash page.

Configure in two clicks

Deploying guest access using WiFi with Facebook login takes two clicks in Cisco Meraki’s dashboard: first elect to use a splash page for guest SSID sign-on, then select “Facebook Wi-Fi” as the method for sign-on.

It’s that simple.

 

Just follow the link in Cisco Meraki’s dashboard to configure your Facebook Page and pair your Cisco Meraki network with your Facebook Page:

 

Available now

We’ve already begun a full-scale, staged release of this feature to our wireless customers, but if you prefer, you can get this new feature today by contacting Cisco Meraki tech support. Otherwise, keep your eyes peeled for Cisco Meraki updates soon!

 

 

Splash page sign-on using SMS

Adding to our built-in splash page capabilities, Meraki APs now feature SMS-based splash authentication. It’s quite straightforward. Users connect to the wireless network and enter a mobile phone number. Then they receive an authorization code via SMS, and once they enter the code into the splash page, they’re granted access to the network. With SMS authentication, a business can provide self-service connection to guest wireless without having to manually verify that only real people are trying to connect. We’ve done the heavy lifting of integrating WiFi access with SMS, and every user should be quite familiar with receiving a simple text message.  A mobile phone has never been so handy.

Naturally, configuring an SSID for SMS auth is done with a single click (or radio button in this case).

Access control setting for SMS authentication

Access control setting for SMS authentication

Users connecting to the network will see a splash page that asks for a mobile phone number.

SMS splash: mobile phone number input

SMS splash: mobile phone number input

Meraki’s system then sends a verification code via text message to the mobile number, and the user enters the code into the splash page to get access to the network.

SMS splash: verification code

SMS splash: verification code

Client details, including the phone number used for the SMS authentication, are displayed on the client details page.

Client details including SMS authentication status

Client details including SMS authentication status

25 free text messages are included so you can try splash pages with SMS authentication. After that, just configure your Twilio account information in the Network-wide settings page, and your Twilio account will be billed for the text messages sent to users using the SMS-based splash.