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On the Manage Applications module, a user can add a new application to their ecosystem as well as ensure that only these authorized apps (apps added by the admin to the organization’s application bank) are accessible on their devices.

A user can perform a number of activities on this module including the following:

  1. Add a New Application.

  2. Blacklist / Whitelist an App.

  3. Map app to devices (Send applications to the devices where they are required).

  4. Add new App version.

  5. View app devices (an overview of the count of devices that has the apps running on them).

Adding an Application

Every organization has an application bank. The Application Bank as the name implies simply holds the organization’s authorized apps. There are 3 options available to an organization if they require to add an application to their ecosystem.

  • Adding an application via Apk file upload

  • Adding an application via the apps download link

  • Adding an application via the google play store.

Adding an Application via Apk file upload

This option can be used if you have the app file on your computer. The process is underlisted.

  1. Login to SMARTMDM web portal, go to Manage Applications > Add New App

On the Application landing, the user can see all the apps they have added earlier and a button “Add new app”

Fig. 1 - Add a New App

2. Fill out details of the app to be added on the portal

There are key sections to note when adding a new app.

  1. OS Version - When adding an app, you’d see the option “OS version”. From here, you can specify the device OS versions that the app support.

  2. The “Upload file” option. checking this radio button opens allows you to search for the file on your computer and upload the file. Once uploaded, a download link is generated for the uploaded app

    Note: If a download link is not generated, this app cannot be downloaded by a device. Fig. 3 below shows the download link generated after an app file was uploaded.

Fig. 2 - Upload an App (apk) file

Fig. 3 - Showing an uploaded app file and the downloaded link generated

If you do not have the app file on your device, you can add the app by using the apps download link. To do this, follow the steps underlisted.

  1. Navigate to Manage Applications > Add New App

Fig. 4 - showing the option for adding the app download link

Adding an Application via the Google Play store

If the app either of the apk file or the app download link is not available, you can add an app from the google play store. If the app is on the play store.

To be able to view the “Upload from play store” option, you need to first select the preferred platform. This is shown on the area highlighted (1) in Fig. 5 below. The area highlighted (3) contains instruction about how to get the App ID. This is further explained in Fig. 6 below.

NOTE:

  • For the Google playstore apps, you are not required to enter a download link. all that is required is the APP ID. You only need to provide the App ID and the app will be added.

  • You need to enter the correct app ID if not the app will not be added. This technically means that you will not be able to map the app to a device.

Fig. 6 - Showing how to select add apps from play store

HOW TO GET AN APP ID

An important fact to note is that the app IDs always come in a specific format. “com.test.appid”

To get an app ID from google play store, follow the steps below;

  1. Navigate to https://play.google.com/store/apps

  2. Search for the app of your choice

3. The app ID is usually added as part of the app URL on your browser after the equal sign. e.g https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seamfix.bioregistra In this case, the app ID is com.seamfix.bioregistra.

Editing app details

To edit App details, Click on the “actions” icon and select “Edit App Details”

Fig 8 - Edit App details

Clicking on edit App details displays a list of app versions that have been created for the app. A user can only see multiple versions of the app if they have created more than one version for that app. As shown in Fig. 7 below, in which case the user created two app versions.

Fig. 9 - Select from available versions

To edit any of the app versions, click on the actions icon and select the preferred activity from the list displayed.

There are a number of actions that can be performed from here. You can either blacklist (or whitelist a blacklisted app version), Map an app to a device(s), Edit the app version or set it as the latest version.

Fig. 10 - Edit app details options

Blacklisting an App

  1. Select “Disable/Blacklist App” (see fig.10 above)

When an App is blacklisted, it is silently removed from the device. To be able to successfully blacklist an app, the admin would have to enter their reason for requesting the app blacklist. (See fig 7 below)

For system apps that cannot be removed or deleted, they can be blacklisted. When they are blacklisted, they become hidden on the device so the user cannot access them. Example of system apps includes; Google play store, Youtube, Youtube music etc.

NB: Blacklisted apps will become inaccessible to the user.

Fig. 11- Enter Blacklist reason

2. App successfully Blacklisted

Fig. 12 - App Blacklist successful

3. View the Blacklisted app

Fig. 13 - View blacklisted app

You can also whitelist a blacklisted app by clicking on the “whitelist app” option as shown in Fig. 14 below. The process is similar to the Blacklist process.

4. Whitelist an app

Fig. 14 - Whitelist an app

Map app to devices

To map an app to a device(s), follow these steps;

  1. Select “Map to Devices” from the drop-down view of the app details (see Fig. 10 above). From the list of devices displayed, check the boxes specific to the devices you want the app to be mapped to or check the “select all devices” box if you want to map the app to all devices.

Fig. 15 - Select a list of devices to be mapped to the app

Notice the “Device OS versions” column? Recall in Fig. 2, we explained that adding an app requires the user to select the OS versions that will be compatible with the app. So at the point of mapping the app to devices, only devices with compatible OS versions will be displayed in the results as shown in Fig. 15 above.

2. App successfully mapped to the device.

Fig. 16 - App mapping successful.

Add a New App Version

Usually, New App versions are added when there is an update to the app. As shown in Fig. 4 above, select the option “Add a new app version”. This will display a form similar to the “Add a new app” form but this time, all the user will be required to do is fill out the app version to be added. The platform, you can use any of the app upload options defined above while updating an app version.

  1. Edit the form with the new app version

Fig. 17 - Create the new app version once all required details have been provided.

2. Add version added successfully

Fig. 18 - App version added successfully.

P.S:

  • All apps added will be silently downloaded on the devices (This is assuming that the app files uploaded or the download link added or the App ID for the google play store app download added are the correct details).

  • For Android versions 7 & below, the user will be prompted to install the app on their device. In this case, the process will only be complete if teh user accepts the option to download the app on the device.

  • If you have mapped an app to a device and you the app is not on the device, check the download links provided. If all have been confirmed to be accurate and the issue still persists, contact support.

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