Admin Timeout

[Twiles]

Is there a way to disable the timeout for select users or networks in an organization?

We have users who only have access to the cameras network in our organization and they would like to leave the page up throughout the day without being logged out (the page is open and up on a second monitor). I do not want to disable the timeout for the whole org…

[MacuserJim · Accepted solution]

I am pretty sure there is not a way to set different time out lengths in the dashboard. (sounds like a great "Make a wish"). However for those users you could look into using a Chrome extension to refresh the page to keep the session alive, such as "Staying Alive for Google Chrome".

[GeorgeB]

We know this is annoying and are looking at allowing Camera Only Admins to be treated differently some time in the future.

[JoelG]

Please make this happen @GeorgeB because the auto-refresh browser extensions no longer seem to function effectively as a workaround.  The end result is that even though the browser extension is auto-refreshing the tab like it should, it ends up showing a "not authorized" page like the one below instead.  This is with SAML accounts and the users claim previously they were able to leave the same video walls up all day long with no browser extension needed.

[Dunky]

Any updates on this.  We will shortly be implementing MV's at one of our sites, and they want a videowall in the factory.  That isnt going to work if it keeps logging out.  Or maybe the Vision Portal has a different idle timeout that can be set to never logout??

TIA

[redsector]

I want it for an read only user for the dasbord global map to see the green and hopefully not red dots on a big monitoring screen. So there should be no timeout at all.

[MRCUR]

Unfortunately @MacuserJim is correct. The timeout is a global org setting so the users will need to keep the session active. 

If you have video walls set up, you could use the new auto rotate walls option to have the page auto refresh and move between walls. This should keep the session alive although I have not tested it since the feature just launched (hopefully it's available for everyone!). 

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

That's actually an interesting thought.

Did you ever go through a trial of testing that, to see if it did in fact keep a session alive?

That could be a decent workaround to at least provide a bit of reprieve, if the organization timeout period is set to be only 20 or 30 minutes.

EDIT: at least from an initial test yesterday, this didn't seem to change the fact that the organization timeout would cause it to log out the account if no activity from the user account which was used to sign in was detected. I'm going to ensure the browser is updated, and try again, but I do not have a lot of hope that will make any difference.

[redsector]

We have an "read only" user for monitoring. And it´s annoying that this user gets logged out with the same time range as admin users.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

Did this ever get turned into a reality of any sort?

We have Meraki cameras deployed throughout our environment, but we seem to have no option to allow for users who are solely set up to access the cameras to have any different sign-out period than Network or Organization Administrators.

To me, I would think that it would make sense to have separated time out options for those user accounts that are simply assigned access to Cameras, versus doing anything else, read- or modification-wise, for the underlying network infrastructure.

Can this please be added?! It is silly to only have an option to increase the time-out period for an entire organization, thereby providing more opportunity for a malicious entity to gain control to an organization's network infrastructure just so users do not have to repeatedly log in throughout a given day just to look at the cameras that have to be logged in to view.

[Dunky]

If all they want is to view images then we got round this in the end by using Meraki Display on the AppleTV box.   Only downside is SAML isn't supported yet.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

Hmm, that's basically what everyone in this thread probably wants/needs. Thanks for the pointer in a direction, albeit one that is paywalled by yet more hardware and licensing - lol. I guess the question at the forefront of my mind with that is, the Org Timeout period does not effect the operation of that solution actually staying signed in and just showing the darn camera feeds?

[Dunky]

Your other option is to use the Vision Portal in full screen mode,  this bypasses the global timeout setting.

However the issue I ran into on a decent Windows PC displaying a 6 camera videowall was the PC running out of resources and hanging very regularly. Since replacing with the AppleTV box no issues. whatsoever.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

Interesting. I tried using the Theater and Fullscreen modes, but it still ultimately times out and forces the user account back to the login, whether I try to use the Meraki Vision application, or the web portal. I'm going to get a quote for the licensing to use with an ATV box, just to explore that avenue. I can empathize with my user base being annoyed about the frequent log-ins/log-outs. It just seems utterly ridiculous that camera administrators can not be set to a different timeout, or have no timeout configured whatsoever.

[Dunky]

Try fullscreen in the Vision Portal again and just leave it, I can assure you it ignores the timeout setting. 

Downside of the Apple box is no SSO at present.

Do every solution is really a compromise.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

I tried both modes repeatedly, and wound up getting the same result. After adjusting the timeout period to be longer, I did find that it would delay the sign out to more or less match the timeout period. However, it would never fully resolve the problem.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

There did wind up being an issue that was supposedly resolved with ver. 1.22.1 regarding the Vision Portal and timeouts, so perhaps that was my issue -- https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Viewing_Video/Meraki_Vision_Portal_Changelog "[New] Fixed issue with users being logged out of full screen video wall view after idle timeout"

Of course, as circumstances ended up playing out, I had ended up thinking that getting the Display licenses and Apple TV would be the better solution, but that is proving to be doing the same type of thing that *was* happening when they were just using the Vision Portal in fullscreen mode on a computer....

I cannot win with something that I would think should be relatively straightforward.

[Jedediah_Jumbl]

You should be able to set up the users with access to certain cameras and/or feeds, so that they can log in and access the Vision Portal and leave it up. I know this is 4+ years after you posted this, and you may already know this, but there was some problem that was just resolved in ver. 1.22.1 of the Vision Portal that was either still a problem causing idle timeouts, or had been previously fixed, then returned as problem -- https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Viewing_Video/Meraki_Vision_Portal_Changelog