IBM Security MaaS360

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  • 1.  Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Wed April 28, 2021 10:00 AM
    I may have completely missed this and wither someone has already posted about this before, however, having had 2 new customer portals setup recently, options for Device and Advanced settings on an Android policy is no longer available.  When adding a new device a message appears saying that all Androidn enrolments have to be done with Android for Enterprise.

    I know that it has been said that standard/manual enrolments would be phased out at some point, so is this now the case with maas that all enrolments have to be done this way.  We have many customers with portals whereby the enrolments are done manually, so is there any easy way to migrate those all to AfE going forward, or is it just a case of resetting devices and re-enrolling them as and when?

    New to the group, so any help would be appreciated.

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    Darren Tiday
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  • 2.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Thu April 29, 2021 04:44 AM
    Edited by Eamonn O'Mahony Thu April 29, 2021 04:46 AM
    Hi Darren
    Great question!
    For new portals since January 2021, Device Admin (the old/legacy mode) enrollment has been disabled. This follows Google's announcements since 2014 and IBM's discussion of this since 2016. 
    There are 2 enrollment types in Android Enterprise: 
    1. Profile Owner mode: installs a partial (application-level) control on devices, but has a very simple migration process from existing enrollment and very simple enrollment. 
    2.  Device Owner mode: takes over full Operating System and hardware controls, but requires full device factory reset/wipe and builds the profile "from the ground up". 
    Generally speaking for employeee-owned devices we recommend Profile Owner mode, and for corporate-owned devices we recommend Device Owner mode. 
    Here's a link to documentation to get you started: 
    IBM Docs on Android Enterprise - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=android-enterprise-enrollment
    Security Learning Academy (training portal) - https://www.securitylearningacademy.com/local/navigator/index.php?search=android+enterprise&level=moma01
    The 2nd requires IBMid login. The content is very varied and includes some videos of less than ten minutes' duration, going to full deep-dive sessions. 
    I highly recommend you get started using these 2 links and let us know here if you have any further questions. 
    Best


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    Eamonn O'Mahony
    Technical Client Success Manager
    IBM Security
    Dublin, Ireland
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  • 3.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Fri April 30, 2021 07:16 AM
    Thank you for this response, very helpful.

    Basically going forward, all new portals and enrollments need to have Android for Enterprise whether it be for Profile or Device Owner.  I don't think this will be too much of an issue as even with Device Owner, you can still give access to users through the policy of adding their own account if customers are flexible on what users can do with the handsets.  Profile Owner seems to be more BYOD which we don't get many requests for this as most customers want control and a corporate setup.

    Our biggest issue are the current customers that already have legacy as the migration only seems to be for Work Profiles and most will want a full Device Owner mode.  Some of our customers have estates of up to 2000 devices, so this is going to be a huge challenge.

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    Darren Tiday
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  • 4.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Tue May 04, 2021 07:44 AM
    Hi Darren
    There are a number of scenarios that can map to customer requirements: 
    1. Devices are replaced in a 'round robin' approach. This means that a customer acquires an excess of devices, say 5-10% so they have a rolling stock. They enroll a device and get it fully set up and send it out to the user who then has a working DO mode device with no downtime - just if there is a SIM card swap this can take a few minutes. The user then sends back the old device which can either be wiped and sent to the next person, or just recycled / removed from fleet if being replaced. There is a net advantage to 'mission-critical' type operations here, but with the caveat that you need a budget for device replacement over a shorter period of time. 
    2. Depending on whether there is an imperative to get the project completed quickly, devices can be replaced using the above approach or instead in a "as-and-when" approach, so when a device is set to be replaced, the new device is enrolled by admins or sent to user for enrollment. This takes longer, but removes the need to have a large budget for device replacement in a short time frame. However it does have the impact of forcing users to remain on DA mode for longer. 
    3. If there is a requirement to have a device enrolled to a specific MaaS360 user, this can be done using the "Enroll on behalf of" which assigns the device to the user but doesn't log on as them, the admin does everything up to the point of putting in the user's credentials and this can be done by the user themself when they receive the device. See a Support question / answer about this:
    https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/question/0D50z00005pey8f/what-is-enroll-on-behalf-of-in-maas360?language=en_US
    4. In addition to this you may want to simplify the enrollment process, whether setting up in bulk in your office or the user just wants to reduce time spent. Have a look at Android Enterprise Zero Touch enrollment, and Samsung Knox Mobile Enrollment, both supported by MaaS360: 
    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=mode-zero-touch-enrollment
    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=mode-samsung-knox-mobile-enrollment-kme-program
    5. Standard DO mode doesn't allow for recovery of user data on the new device. This is because the DO-mode enrollment sets up a Google account (unless you're using G-Suite, which most don't), which doesn't have storage attached to it and therefore can't retrieve a backup. However, if this is a requirement, there is a solution Google have come up with, called WPCO configuration (Work profile on Corporate Owned) which will work on Android 11 and later devices (the previous approach from Google has been removed by them).  So a user with a Device Admin device, could back up personal data to their personal Google account (remember to enable on settings in Android policy). After this, when the DO mode has been set up they can add the personal account to the device, and retrieve their data that way. However the apps which can retrieve the backup will only be for personal use (photos, text messages etc) and not the enterprise ones. Don't worry, corporate email and docs will synch once more once configured correctly, so there should be no concern here. Some device manufacturers have data migration apps, but which are completely outside of our control or configuration. 
    Document: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=operation-work-profile-corporate-owned-devices-wpco

    ------------------------------
    Eamonn O'Mahony
    Technical Client Success Manager
    IBM Security
    Dublin, Ireland
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Fri May 07, 2021 01:53 AM
    Hi Eamonn,

    If DA is not available for new customers please mention this in the MaaS360 document(supported OS versions). Some customers are still using the lower version of android which is not supported for AE.

    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=devices-supported-in-maas360-based-operating-system

    Thanks.



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    mohanraj
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  • 6.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Fri May 07, 2021 05:08 AM
    Hi Mohanraj
    Thanks for your feedback. 
    The document you have linked to seems to give only specific OS versions supported, not enrollment types. 
    Unfortunately this being an enrollment type, it might not be the best place to position the information. 

    However there are a number of places where this has been documented. 
    Release notes for our 10.81 platform release in December 10.81:
    https://www.securitylearningacademy.com/mod/book/view.php?id=29151&chapterid=1960
    The section on "Device Admin deprecation" links you to a Knowledge Centre (IBM Docs) page:
    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=android-device-admin-deprecation
    If you have a look at this page you can see supported enrollment types for Android: 
    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maas360?topic=devices-managing-enrollment-requests-device
    In addition there is a page where our Support team documented the deprecation of Device Admin for MaaS360:
    https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/maas360-android-10-and-device-admin-deprecation
    Finally here's a document from Google about Device Admin deprecation: https://developers.google.com/android/work/device-admin-deprecation

    I hope this information is useful.

    ------------------------------
    Eamonn O'Mahony
    Technical Client Success Manager
    IBM Security
    Ireland
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Fri May 07, 2021 05:14 AM
    Hi Eamonn,


    Thank you for the links. Good day!


    Thanks & Regards 
    M.Mohanraj






  • 8.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu April 29, 2021 06:45 AM

    The answer to your questions are quite involved.  However there is one over arching thing you must be aware of.  It is mission critical to configure your customer portals with Android Enterprise, immediately.  No one has control over Google's deprecation schedule which means that your customers are going to be exposed if this has not been vetted immediately. 

     

    The Migration paths for re-enrollment of devices which will now properly be managed using Android Enterprise functionality in MaaS will depend on which level you choose: Profile Owner vs Device Owner/COSU.  Profile Owner enrollments are significantly easier, however this enrollment process may not meet the security and management requirements for each of your customers.  Device Owner enrollments for devices currently enrolled in MaaS or any MDM,  require a complete factory reset of the device including removal of factory reset protection.  This is a Google imposed requirement.

     

    IBM has a lot of great process documents in the Solutions catalogues.  I highly recommend using these.  Further if you reach out to your IBM partner rep or IBM MSP you work with,  they should be able to arrange some training for you. 

     

     

     

    Thanks,

     

    Mitch Lauer

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    159 Perry Highway, Suite 200

    Pittsburgh, PA 15229

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  • 9.  RE: Manual enrolments for Android devices

    Posted Fri April 30, 2021 07:18 AM
    Thank you for the response and very helpful.

    As I have put on our other response, in some cases this will be easy for us to do and in others where customers already have big estates of devices using legacy enrollments, this will be very challenging, but something we need to act on sooner rather than later.

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    Darren Tiday
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