Using the Tulip Player with Different Windows Accounts

Purpose

Learn how to setup the Tulip Player to run as a single Display Device with Windows accounts

The Tulip Player application for Windows supports multiple installations across different Windows accounts on the same PC to appear as a single Display Device on the Tulip platform. This allows the PC to be assigned to a single station and have operators take turns using their distinct Windows account, each having its own installation of the Tulip Player application.

This feature is automatically enabled for Tulip sites that use LDAP/SAML for Operator login. For Tulip sites using Badge Id for Operator login, reach out to support@tulip.co to enable this feature.

This feature is available only for the Windows OS.

On the PC, Tulip Player does not allow for multiple Windows users running the app at the same time, ensuring that only one operator is logged into the Station at any given time.

What Happens When Multiple Users Open the Tulip Player App?

Users may run into this scenario if they remotely access the PC. Say, Operator A is currently logged into Windows Account A and is using the Player application. Operator B remotely logs into Windows Account B and opens the Player application. Player will show a warning that Operator A is currently logged into the Station and disallows Operator B from using the Player app.

What Happens If an Operator Is Not Actively Using the Tulip Player Application or Locked Their Windows Account but Left the Tulip Player Running?

In factories that work in shifts, it is common for Operators to lock their screen at the end of their shift and the operator for the next shift would proceed to log into their Windows account to run the Tulip Player app. The previous operator might have left the Tulip Player app running in their Windows account.

To handle this scenario,

• If an Operator has not made any mouse, keyboard or touch interactions for 30 seconds, the Tulip Player considers the operator as inactive.
• If another Operator tries to use the Player application from their Windows account, they will see the same warning that another user is using the station but will also be presented with the option to “claim” the station.
• Clicking on the “Claim Station” button will make the current Operator as active and log out the previous Operator.
• If the previous operator resumes their Windows session, they will instead see the warning that another Operator is currently using the Player application.

Auto claim Station:

If more than 15 minutes have passed since the last Operator was active, Tulip Player will skip the warning screen and automatically claim the Station.

Opting out of this functionality

This functionality of sharing the same Display Device identity across all Windows accounts may not be ideal in some scenarios such as “Thin Clients” where a single large Windows Server has a large number of Windows accounts and multiple Operators are simultaneously logged in.

In such cases, this feature can be circumvented by changing the location where Tulip Player stores the shared identity through an environment variable. By specifying a folder location that is unique to each Windows account, the Tulip Players across the different Windows accounts are isolated from each other.

To set this environment variable at a System level, open Powershell and run the following snippet:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("TULIP_PLAYER_GLOBAL_CONFIG_DIR", "%APPDATA%\Tulip Player\tulip\global_config", [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)

To set at a user account level instead, replace:

“[EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine” with "[EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User”

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