How do you know if your device is in drift? You can check its drift status in Device & Groups. But how do you know what that means?
In this article, we’ll explore the scenarios that cause, and don’t cause drift. Keep in mind that Drift Management is an ever-evolving feature, and we’ll provide updates (through our release notes and this article) when there are enhancements to this feature.
In this article:
What is Drift?
When a device is in drift its configurations do not match its blueprint.
Drift Scenarios
This table covers the scenarios that cause and don’t cause drift. The scenarios in this table may change as drift functionality changes, so check our release notes for the latest updates.
| Scenario | Drift Status | Notes |
| Save or publish a blueprint without converging devices | Drift | |
|
Changing a device’s blueprint without converging it |
Drift | |
| Adding apps to a device outside of its blueprint | No Drift | |
|
Adjusting the volume on a device outside of a blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Adjusting the screen’s display settings (brightness, orientation, and timeout) outside of a blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Moving a device to a group with a linked blueprint |
No Drift | The device converges to the linked blueprint when it’s moved to a new group. |
|
Changing the device’s Wi-Fi outside of a blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Enabling ADB outside of a blueprint |
No Drift |
Android devices only
|
|
Switching device mode (Kiosk or Multi-app) outside of a blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Locking a device’s screen |
No Drift | Android devices only |
| Removing a device’s passcode | No Drift |
iOS devices only |
|
Enabling bluetooth on a device outside of its blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Enabling Near-Field Communication on a device outside of its blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Changing device-level configurations (JSON or Plist) on a device with a blueprint |
No Drift | |
|
Adding files to a device outside of its blueprint |
No Drift |
Android devices only |
Use this information to determine why your devices are in drift and decide when they should converge.
Our Vision for Drift Management
Eventually, we want to detect drift in all the scenarios listed above and beyond. Learn more about our vision for drift by checking out our blog article, The Vision of DevOps for Devices, Part 2: Drift Management and Remediation.