Consent prompts and session notices

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When a technician connects to your computer, the Outpost tray app is how you know, and often how you decide. This page explains each prompt and notice you might see, what it means, and what your answer does. It also helps administrators choose how much to show the people they support.

What you see depends on the session type

Your IT team decides, in a profile, which kinds of remote session are allowed on your computer. A session opens as the most permissive kind your team allows. See Remote access.

Session type	What you see
Unattended	No prompt and no banner.
Attended	A banner while the session runs. You cannot stop it from the tray app.
Consent required	A prompt asking your permission. The session starts only if you allow it. Then the banner.
Escorted	A banner saying the session is supervised. A second person from your IT team is present for the whole session.

In every session type, unattended included, the tray app’s card lists the clipboard and file transfers of the session and shows the secure transfer code. Neither pops up: you see them when you open the tray app.

When a technician asks to connect and your permission is required, the tray app shows:

Allow remote support? A support technician is requesting to view and control this computer.

The technician’s name follows when it is known.

Select Allow to let the session start.
Select Deny to refuse it. The technician is told the session was denied.
If you do not answer within 120 seconds, the request is denied.

On Windows, the card comes to the front when a request arrives, whatever you were doing in the tray app. On Linux, the prompt is a desktop notification with Allow and Deny buttons, so you see it even if your desktop hides tray icons.

On Windows, a session to the sign-in screen, before anyone has signed in, does not ask for permission, because there is nobody to ask. Only a technician your IT team allows to connect without asking can open one.

While a session runs, a banner across the top of the card reads Outpost remote support session in progress, with the technician’s name. In an escorted session it reads Outpost supervised remote support session in progress.

On Linux, a notification titled A technician is connected stays on screen while the session runs: “A support technician is connected to this computer and can see your screen.”

The secure transfer code

When a technician copies clipboard content or files between their computer and yours during a session, the content is encrypted end to end. Your Outpost passes it along but cannot read it.

To prove that the technician’s browser is talking to your computer and nobody in between, the tray app shows a six-digit code, such as Secure transfer code 482 913. The technician sees a code too. If they ask you to read yours out, open the tray app and read it to them, so they can check that the two codes match. On Windows, pointing at the Outpost icon in the notification area also shows the code. The code never pops up on its own.

Your IT team can require that check every time someone signs in during a session, with the remote_access.e2e_require_verification profile setting. Otherwise the technician is asked to check the code only when your computer’s key changes.

Transfers during a session

The tray app’s card lists every clipboard and file transfer of the session, newest first, with its time, so you can see what was copied to or from your computer:

Technician sent 3 files (18.4 MB) to this PC
Technician copied 2 files from this PC
Technician pasted text to this PC
Technician copied text from this PC

The list names the computer the way its operating system does: “this PC” on Windows, “this Mac” on macOS, and “this computer” on Linux.

Transfers never show a pop-up or a desktop notification. Open the tray app to see the list. It clears when the session ends.

A password sent to you

A technician can send you a password or other secret, such as a new Wi-Fi password, to the tray app. The Support view then shows a card at the top:

A password was sent to you

The card names what was sent, who sent it, any message, and when the link expires.

Select Open it. The password opens on a secure page in your web browser, not in the tray app.
If the technician gave you a passphrase, they tell you it another way, such as by phone. Enter it on the page.

The link works once. Select Dismiss to put the card away. Dismissing does not cancel the link, and the card returns the next time you open the tray app until the link is used or expires.

For administrators: send a secret this way by choosing To the Outpost tray on their machine under Deliver it when you share a credential. See Documentation.

Content is licensed CC BY 4.0. Code samples are MIT. Outpost and the Outpost mark are trademarks of Outpost Business Solutions, PBC and are not covered by either license.