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Enrolling Zebra TC70 with Android 5.1.1 on Andriod for work

S
Securis
Securis

Does anyone know how to get Zebra TC70 devices on Andriod for Work.  These devices are owned by the company and we want to manage them using Soti.  We've tried Google Device policy but if the user removes adds a screen lock we get locked out of the device and have to flash it.  I've been told that with Google Andriod for work the company always has a back door to the device.

However, i can't figure out how to get it to work with Soit and the docs for this are minimal and support doesn't really seem to know either.

7 years ago
Android
ANSWERS
MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
7 years ago

Do you have the GMS or AOSP version of Android 5.1.1 installed? Based on your description it sounds like you're probably looking for an Device Administrator (fully managed COSU) use case and not an Android Enterprise Device Owner (previously AFW) use case. Can you confirm how the devices need to be configured? Does every device need to be configured exactly the same, or will individual users need some sort of personalization control? Do you need access to the Google Play Store?

SS
Support Staff Account
7 years ago (edited 7 years ago)

Have you tried just enrolling the device into MobiControl to manage the devices altogether?  What happened when you did?

Android "Enterprise" (formerly Android for Work) can be tricky with Android 5.1.1.  What steps were you able to get to and where are you getting stuck?

S
Securis
7 years ago

The devices are currently enrolled in MobiControl.  The issue is that we want to Google Mobile Services which means that the user needs more access than a simple lock screen can provide.

The Soti Docs for Version 13 have almost no information on how to enroll the device into Google Enterprise.  It simply states "If the agent is downloaded after the Device Setup Wizard has completed, the device can only be activated as a Managed Profile or you must factory reset the device to provision it as a managed device."  You can read the full doc here. 

I take that as it needs to be set up from the beginning.  When you go to set up the device from the very beginning it asks for an activation code which has to be numbers.  I can not find that code anywhere.

MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
7 years ago

Android management can be confusing because there are several different management use cases, and the terminology and capabilities has also changed over the years and different dessert flavors of Android. 

Taking a step back, it would be best if you described the particular use case that your devices will be leveraged for so that we can better recommend the correct management style.

- Will your devices be individually assigned to end users?

- Do all of the devices need to be configured exactly the same, or will some users need access to different apps?

- Will users be leveraging these as personally enabled, but business owned devices? Can they choose to install additional apps beyond what you provision them?

- Do the end users need to have access to the Google Play store, or can you distribute all of the required apps from SOTI?

- Do you need access to any other Google GMS services like Maps?

S
Securis
7 years ago

- Will your devices be individually assigned to end users?  - Yes.  We replacing our fleet fo MC65s that run Windows CE.  We also use Google Apps so we want our employees to be able to use the Google apps on the devices.  These devices won't be shared by employees.  Each one will have his/her own.

 

- Do all of the devices need to be configured exactly the same, or will some users need access to different apps? No, we want to preload some apps on the device but we also want the users to have the freedom to download other apps if they find value in them.

 

- Will users be leveraging these as personally enabled, but business owned devices? Can they choose to install additional apps beyond what you provision them?  Exactly, all of these devices are company-owned assets, this is not a BYOD scenario.  We've had instances with IOS devices where an employee was terminated and the device was locked to a personal apple id and we could not get the device unlocked or reloaded, basically rendering the device unless.  We want to avoid that, but we also want to avoid having to reload the device as well if we can't get the terminated employee to unlock the device.

 

 

- Do the end users need to have access to the Google Play store, or can you distribute all of the required apps from SOTI? Yes would like them to have this if we can.

 

- Do you need access to any other Google GMS services like Maps?  Yes some of the reason we chose these devices was for the Maps because we have field agents that use maps to navigate.

 

Hope that helps and thank you for taking the time to help me out.  Soti Support is failing big time in this.

MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
7 years ago

I think you also would probably want to setup a Managed Google Play account that is shared across all devices. This would enable the end users to still select and download apps from the Play Store, but only the apps that you allow them access to. 

MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
7 years ago

If you in fact know that you want to leverage Android Enterprise based management and not Device Administrator based management then the devices will need to be enrolled in a different manner. If you factory reset one of the devices, assuming that it has a GMS build of Android, then you will be prompted to go through the Google startup setup wizard when the device is first booted back up. At the prompt for the email account, assuming you're connected to Wifi with public internet access, you should be able to use afw#mobicontrol in place of the account details. 

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