I am going through this right now. It's definitely different, you need to use a different agent and enrollment method. Luckily with Zebras you can still use StageNow to make the process not too painful. You still use a device add rule but you need to enroll the device when it is in a factory reset state on the "Welcome" screen. Zebra has good documentation on this, such as: https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support-downloads/knowledge-articles/evm/How-To-Enroll-Into-Soti-Server-Using-StageNow-DO.html

I currently use StageNow to just scan 2 barcodes and the Json file to auto enroll it in our SOTI. This applies to Android 8 and above.

Is the error on the web page, or when you try to run the agent? Any details about what the error says?

Hello Lori,

Thank you for your post, our development team recently released 14.2.3 agent version, can you please try to enroll with this new agent version? also, can you please share error message.

Regards,

Hi Ian,

thanks for your interest into this.

Let me try to explain exactly what I did.

I have a Windows 2016 Server with MobiControl console version 14.2 installed and a Zebra MC33 no GMS with Android Nougat 7.1.2 with latest full build released in May2020 installed. The Zebra device is correctly enrolled to the MobiControl 14.2 version and works perfectly.

We would like to upgrade MobiControl to version 15, so I have installed version 15.1 trial on another Windows 2016 Server machine. I have unenrolled the Zebra device from the 14.2 console with no issues. I then created an add device rule on the 15.1 console and got the enrollment URL and ID. On the Zebra device, with SOTI app opened, I typed the enrollment URL (with and without the https:// protocol, it doesn't make any difference) and pressed the enroll blue button. The error just says: "enrollment failed. please retry or contact your system administrator". The very same happens if I enter the enrollment ID instead of the URL.

Because the above try failed, I tried with a different way, which is exactly the same method I use to enroll the device to the 14.2 console, so let me try to explain. I have factory reset the device, set up the wifi connection, opened Chromium browser and typed the enrollment URL; it asks to download the agent and when I go next it tries to connect to the playstore which of course cannot be reached. As I was saying before, this method (type the enrollment URL in the browser and follow the wizard) works perfectly with an enrollment URL created with a 14.2 console. It doesn't with a 15.1 console.

I am not sure if I selected any wrong setting during the creation of the add device rule in the 15.1 console (which has few different steps in the wizard), or if I am using a wrong enrollment method.

Any suggestion or idea is more than welcome!

Please, let me know in case you would like me to add any further detail.

Thank you very much!

Hi JVMOD,

thanks for chiping in. I just replied to the previous comment with some more detail related to the enrollment method I am using. Most likely there's something wrong in what I do, so I appreciate your help. Regarding the agent, I have updated all the Zebra agents during the add device rule creation (in the Agent Download step of the wizard I pressed on manage agents in the right bottom, selected all the Zebra agents and then pressed on the update button for each of them); it says Zebra 14.2.3, Zebra Concierge 13.6.0, Zebra ET1-GB 13.0.0, Zebra MC36 13.6.0 (I guess the first is the one i am interested in).

So, as far I understand, the console is deploying the last agent version.

Any other idea?

Thanks

I apologize, it was our fault. During the add device rule creation, by mistake we selected Download from Google Play instead of Download directly from the server.

The device enrollment is now successful.

Thank you very much for your time and help.

We anyway have another issue trying to enroll same device with Android Oreo (it says that agent is not compatible), but I will double check again all the settings and, in case, will open a new question.

This thread can be closed.

Kind regards

With Zebra devices running Android Oreo and higher you have to use Android Enterprise based management which is separate from the Device Administrator, legacy Android management that you're using with Nougat. This is a big transition in the way android management works so it may take quite a bit of adjustment. 

Hi Matt,

thanks for your answer.

As I'm not an expert here, I'm afraid I did not catch you. Do you mean I need to use a different enrollment method (than creating an add device rule) if device OS is Android Oreo? Should be the case, where I can find the instructions to follow?

Thank you very much!

Best regards

hi Ian,

glad to hear I'm not alone :=)

Does the link you posted apply also on devices installed with Android non-GMS OSs? I am asking this because it looks like it expects to use the google agent instead of the zebra one.

Thanks!

For Enterprise you just have that one agent, but then you can download plugins for your specific devices which is often needed for full remote control capabilities (I JUST learned that yesterday). I believe you can only use the one generic Enterprise agent.

So what I have been doing is downloading the agent from here: https://docs.soti.net/mobicontrolagentdownloads/ and then also the plugin for my Zebra devices. Deploy the plugin as a package normally. The agent just treat as normal, you can reference it in StageNow, or if you choose to "Install agent from Google Play" in your add device rule you don't even need to manually download the agent.

Hi Ian!

And... success!! we were able to enroll a Zebra TC72 (Android Oreo) barcode scanner to MobiControl console by using StageNow.

We basically followed exactly the instructions you provided (https://www.zebra.com/us/en/support-downloads/knowledge-articles/evm/How-To-Enroll-Into-Soti-Server-Using-StageNow-DO.html URL).

And, for the people who will walk around this forum, let me add a couple of very useful points:

1. instead of putting the enrollment ID, we had to enter the enrollment URL in the json file.

2. the agent used is the one downloaded from https://docs.soti.net/mobicontrolagentdownloads/ (left side, select Android Enterprise agent and plugins --> under agents section just download the agent and upload it in your stageNow profile)

3. to fully remote control your device (otherwise you will just be in a read-only mode) with soti console (as you already mentioned) it's mandatory to connect to https://docs.soti.net/mobicontrolagentdownloads/ , and again click on Android enterprise agents and plugins. On the right side, select your device model (for instance, I selected Zebra TC2x & Oreo and above devices) and I downloaded the plugin file (.pcg). Then I created a package in soti console with that pcg and delivered to the device by using the profile.

We're about to test the same with the Zebra MC33 device once upgraded to Oreo, but I'm pretty confident it will be fine as well.

We would like to try to upgrade the TC72 to Pie. Do you believe the same method will work or anybody of you has some additional suggestion?

If possibile, I would like to add my personal thought and opinion: it's very frustrating to see things get so much complicated instead of being as much user-friendly as possible. I mean, if nobody of you had replied to my post with the URL provided by Ian, there's no mention in SOTI website about any change or different enrollment methods depending on the Android OS, which (for sure) will be upgraded from time to time all around the world. It's right that each company takes its own decision, but the way to make things agile is winning in most of the cases, especially when people are working in one direction since few years and need to change the game rules.

Thank you all for the great help and support. Much appreciated. Have a great day ahead.

Hi Lore,

Thank you for advising us that your post has been solutioned. Please let us know what reply you found to assist you in solving your inquiry so others may benefit from this information by selecting "is solution".

Regards,

Glad you got the help you needed. Great summary you provided as well. I agree, it's a pretty big learning process but at least there ARE sources out there, even if they are difficult to find at times.