Update apps automatically on Android+ devices and MobiControl upgrades

This post has three main questions. First, I would like to be able to install/update apps automatically on Android+ devices. The majority of these apps are available on the play store. I created an application catalog rule and added apps from both the managed Google Play account and the normal Google Play apps. Google Play store apps are showing on the device, but the managed Google Play apps are not. These are COPE devices so we don't want to use the regular Google Play store method since the users will be able to install any apps they want.  Second question involves upgrading MobiControl. Since it's on the cloud I know I'm supposed to contact support and I have done that last Wednesday I think, but still didn't get a reply. But I need more information about the process before starting since it's my first time. Do I have to specify which version I want to upgrade to or do they always upgrade to the latest version? How long does the upgrade take? Is there any downtime or lost data to worry about? Can I take a backup? How will users be affected by the upgrade? Lastly, does Soti MobiControl require some form of root access to the device? I think I know the answer to this but my manager asked me so I figured I'd ask on here. The reason being is I was testing the Android Enterprise agent on one of the test devices and it wouldn't complete the configuration because I kept getting a "custom OS" error. I looked into it and found posts on here saying it's got to do with the device being rooted at some point in time. I dug deeper and read about Samsung's Knox warranty bit which is like a switch that once triggered cannot be switched off. Samsung's official solution is to replace the motherboard which is expensive and frankly environmentally irresponsible, but that's not the issue here. I discovered that our other test device also had this Knox warranty bit triggered and so far, every device I checked has it triggered which means I cannot install the Android Enterprise agent on any of them. So I'm just trying to rule out the possibility that it was caused by MobiControl. Current system info that might be needed: MobiControl version: 14.1.4.1693 (on cloud) Agent version: Samsung ELM 13.5.0 Android version: 7.0 Nougat