After setting up your Esper account, creating a blueprint is the first step to managing your devices efficiently, flexibly, and dynamically. This article covers each setting and the process for creating a blueprint and applying those changes to your devices.
In this article:
Step 1: Creating a Blueprint
To add a blueprint, go to Blueprints Manager and click on Create Blueprint.
Choose from the following options:
- Create New Blueprint: create a new blueprint.
- Create Blueprint from JSON Config: create a blueprint from a JSON file. Find the JSON file for a blueprint by clicking on a blueprint > ... > Download JSON.
- Download JSON Config: download the JSON config to be used for a new Blueprint.
- Create Blueprint from Template: Create a blueprint from a Template. Learn more about creating a Blueprint from a Template.
Create New Blueprint
When you create a new blueprint, you set the settings and policies for every device linked to that blueprint. When the device's configurations match the blueprint, it operates at a Desired State.
Name and describe the blueprint. Then click Continue.
Blueprint Sections
Understanding Blueprint Terms
Version Number: This blueprint’s version. Whenever you make a change, a new version will be saved in the Blueprint Manager.
Published Status: Indicates if the changes are published or not. Blueprints must be saved before they can be published.
Sections: The sections that control device configurations such as Wi-Fi connectivity, App Installations, and other software and hardware settings.
How to Apply
Blueprints determine which configurations are applied and at what point they should be applied.
Always Apply: The strictest provisioning method. Every time the device interacts with the Console, the setting in the blueprint will be applied even if the end-user makes changes, those changes will reset.
For the device user, this means that they are free to change the volume. However, the Console user will need to explicitly set the device back to the way it is described in the blueprint to reach its desired state.
For a Console user with permission to make changes to the device, even if they change the device’s volume from the Console, the blueprint will revert these changes when it reaches the device.
The blueprint creator will be able to change the volume if they make a change to the volume setting in the
Provision Only: The setting will apply once–at the time of provisioning. Some features make sense to set as Provision Only, such as time zone settings if you are provisioning devices that will be shipped to different regions.
Ignore: The setting will be ignored. At the time of provisioning, it will have whichever settings the device had by default or before provisioning. Changes can be made to this setting at any point.
In some cases, it makes sense to ignore a device’s brightness settings and let the user control it. Console users with the ability to interact with that device or Group will also be able to make changes to these settings.
You can quickly change these settings by using the top dropdown menu of each section.
Drift Detection
Drift Detection allows admins to see drift at the granular level. Learn more about Blueprint Drift and Drift Audits.
Step 2: Saving, Publishing, and Converging
After you’ve created a blueprint, or made changes to it, you can press Save.
Pressing Save will save the changes you made, but won’t have any effect on the devices linked to the blueprint.
After saving, you’ll notice that the version number changes. From the blueprint, you can click on the version number to see a list of your saved history.
After saving the blueprint, you can press Edit Blueprint to make more changes. Or, if you’re done making changes, press Publish.
Press Publish when you are ready to publish the new blueprint version.
You can choose two options:
- Publish: Publish the changes without converging. This means the blueprint settings will not be applied to the devices.
- Publish & Converge: Publish the changes and converge (apply the latest blueprint to devices). You can enable this option by checking the Publish & Converge devices box. This is not the only way to converge devices.
Devices will be in Drift until they are converged to the new blueprint version. You can manually Converge devices from the Devices & Groups section as well.