GET STARTED WITH MMGUARDIAN FOR YOUR CHILD’S ANDROID TABLET

The application must be registered before it will start functioning and for your trial period to commence. The following information is requested on the registration screen:

Password:

Your choice of password. If you already have an MMGuardian account, please enter your existing password.

Password Confirmation:

Repeat the password!

Parent Email Address:

This will be your MMGuardian account name. Please use an email account that your child does not have access to, as it’s used for things such as password recovery and reset. If you already have an MMGuardian account, please enter your existing email address.

Enter the information described above and then tap on the Register button.

Immediately following successful registration, you’ll be guided through some initial setup stages, related to enabling the various mechanisms used to protect the application from tampering.

Time Limits enables you to set times when the tablet will be locked by the MMGuardian app. When the device is locked, the admin password must be entered before the tablet can be used.

In the Time Limits screen, first enter the desired start and stop times. To lock overnight, set the start time ‘greater’ than the end time, e.g. start at 10 pm and end at 7 am.  Next, select the day or days for this specific lock schedule. Then tap on the Add Time Schedule button.

More than one schedule may be created to allow for different lock times on different days; for example, to have earlier lock times on evenings before a school day.

Each active Time Limit schedule is shown, and can be removed using the green X (delete) button.

If you are configuring time limits on the web portal or in the Parent App, as a convenience, all time-schedules created for the app are available for reuse in other functions. When you start to add a new schedule, you’ll see any existing schedules listed and can select to use the schedule by clicking on the check-box so that the tick symbol shows in the box. Of course, you can also create totally new schedules.

App Control is used to either allow or block use of specific applications, or to set usage restrictions on when apps can be used.

You will see the list of apps that are currently installed on the child’s device.

By default all apps are set as allowed, indicated by the green tick next to the app. To block an app always, tap on the green tick so that it changes to a red block symbol.

Enable the optional ‘automatically block newly installed apps’ function if you want to automatically have any newly installed apps to be set as blocked.

Usage restrictions for apps are set by creating one or more app groups, setting restrictions for the group and then adding the relevant apps to the relevant group.

Tap on the Groups tab and then the ‘add’ button to create a group.

Either or both of the following can then be set as restrictions for the group:

– Daily Limits: This will limit usage of apps in the group, in total, to the specified duration each day.

– Block Schedules: Set times when apps in the group should be blocked.

Finally, add the desired apps to the group.

You can create more than one group (e.g. Games, Social Media) but each app can only be in one group.

Prevent your child from accessing web sites that are not appropriate for children, using the Web Filter function.

Web Filter can be set to work with Chrome, or the built in safe browser part of the MMGuardian app.

When the MMGuardian browser is selected, MMGuardian will automatically block other popular web browsers, including Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Accordingly, your child must use the MMGuardian Safe Browser to browse the internet.

To enable Web Filter, select Web Filter from the menu, then tap the on/off button to turn it on.

Select the appropriate child age range. This will configure the Web Filter with default allow or block settings for each of the many categories that the web filter uses. The lower the age range, the more restrictive the default settings will be.

You may view and edit the category settings to match your specific needs.

Overrides can also be created. These are specific web site URLs (addresses) that should always be allowed or blocked, and will ‘override’ the site’s categorisation.

When using the MMG browser, there are two additional settings: Allow Downloads and Prevent Location.

Allow Downloads

This is disabled by default. When enabled, the browser will permit downloads of file types MP3, PDF and ZIP. Please however note that whether downloads are blocked or not relies on the URL of the file, and whether it ends with .mp3, .pdf or .zip.

Prevent Location

This is enabled by default. When enabled, it prevents web sites from obtaining the location of the phone. When it is disabled, then web sites may request the location of the phone. Please note that even when enabled, the user will be prompted via a dialog message whether to allow the specific location request. Currently, every request from a web site will be prompted – the MMGuardian Browser will not store the choice made for the site.