Managing a Group's Apps

Manage apps in a group. You'll be able to install, uninstall, change state, and manage configurations for applications.

This is one way of managing group applications. You can also use a blueprint to manage device applications. Keep in mind that whenever you converge devices, the blueprint changes are applied.

In this article: 

• Installing and Uninstalling 
• Scheduled Install
• Set Application State  
• Manage Configurations
• Finding Package Names

Installing and Uninstalling 

From the Install/Uninstall tab, select: 

• App Platform: Android or iOS
• App action: install or uninstall 
• App
• App version 
• Managed configurations

Select Install from the Select Application Action dropdown.

Step 2: Device info shows the number of devices and their Last Seen status. 

Step 3: Select the application you want to install from the Select App dropdown.

Step 4: Select the application version. 

Part 5: Check the app install progress 

Use the Activity Feed to check Group application install and uninstall progress for applications set to install immediately. Learn more about Dispatch commands and the Activity Feed.

Scheduled Install

From the Scheduled Install tab, you'll be able to create a scheduled installation for the app. Name the scheduled installation, then select: 

• App action: install or uninstall 
• App
• App version 
• Install time relative to: device time or console time. 
• Install window: when you check recurring schedule, this means the system will attempt to install or uninstall the app during the scheduled window, even if the system cannot reach the device. 
• Star and end times

Set Application State  

You can choose the behavior for apps on the group's devices. 

To change the application state status, enter its package name in the box and click on:

Show state: Show state keeps the application accessible directly and indirectly on your device, which means the user can access the application directly on your device or via some other application.

Hide state: If an application is set to Hide, it will not appear as an app on the device but it can still run in the background. Most preloaded apps are hidden by default. 

Disable state: If you want to prevent an application from running, use Disable. The Disable state is helpful for preloaded applications that you cannot uninstall. This state prevents the application from running in the foreground and background. 

Launchable but hidden state: Allow the application to be launched from other applications. Hide it on the home screen. Cut down on home screen bloat without sacrificing functionality.  Requires Android Esper Agent 8.5+.  For devices on versions below 8.5: 

• When converging with Launchable but hidden, devices will show a success message in the Event Feed if all other settings are successfully applied. The device’s apps will be in one of the following states:
  • Hidden: The app will be hidden if it’s newly installed on the device. 
  • As-is: The app will retain its previous state (whatever it was before switching to hidden but launchable) if it was already on the device. 

Click Apply.

Manage Configurations

Apply managed configurations to a group. Enter the package name and JSON code. 

Notes:

1. Manage configurations can be applied to Android devices 5.0 or above.

2. All applications will accept the JSON values, but changes will only happen for apps that allow configuration changes.

3. Manage configurations cannot be applied to a Google Play store application while installing it. However, an installed application can have managed configurations.

Following is a sample code for Chrome (Version 86 and above) Manage Configuration: 

{
  "URLBlocklist":[
    "example.com",
    "https://ssl.server.com",
    "hosting.com/bad_path",
    "https://server:8080/path",
    ".exact.hostname.com",
    "file://*",
    "custom_scheme:*",
    "*"
  ],
  "SafeBrowsingProtectionLevel":1,
  "HomepageLocation":"https://www.chromium.org",
  "CookiesBlockedForUrls":[
    "https://www.example.com",
    "[*.]example.edu"
  ],
  "DefaultGeolocationSetting":3
}

Following is a sample code for Chrome (Version below 86) Manage Configuration:

{"URLBlacklist":[
"example.com",
"https://ssl.server.com",
"hosting.com/bad_path",
"https://server:8080/path",
".exact.hostname.com",
"file://*",
"custom_scheme:*",
"*"],
"SafeBrowsingProtectionLevel":1,

"HomepageLocation":"https://www.chromium.org", "CookiesBlockedForUrls":[
"https://www.example.com",
"[*.]example.edu"
],
  "DefaultGeolocationSetting":3     
}

Click "See Details" to view the status of the installation on the slide-out from the right.

Finding Package Names

View the package names for any applications installed on a device by navigating to the device’s details > Apps. The package name for each application is displayed in the resulting list view.

Alternatively, if you need the exact package name of an in-ROM application, use an Android Debug Bridge (ADB) command to retrieve the names of all the packages.

Physically connect to the device using a USB cable and authorize ADB usage on the device by going to Device > Settings. Once ADB usage is authorized, the following command will retrieve the names of all the packages:

adb shell pm list packages

ADB will return a list of all the applications running on the device: