I did - annoyingly, I was guided to alter this by Soti's support agent when we were trouble-shooting another issue, as he said that the profile method was a more reliable method of pushing mandatory apps to devices than using an app policy.

If can't change it now without uninstalling the app from 60 devices and pushing it back again using an app policy. As I discovered the hard way that, when deploying a new package version, you get errors if you install an app using an application policy and then try to update it using a profile (or vice versa).

I've now managed successfully to push the app to 2 additional 'work profile' devices but I had to jump through some undocumented hoops:

1. In device settings, you have to find the 'install apps from unknown sources' permission and 'allow' Mobi Control to install such apps. You have to take care to ensure that you set the permission for the Mobi Control instance in the work profile (as you also start with a Mobi Control instance in the personal profile which I think can be deleted after configuration of the work profile is complete). This caught me out as I had set the permission in the personal version, but the work version is the one trying to install the app.

2. Force re-install the package from MobiControl and then watch out for notifications on the lock screen of the device asking for permission to install the app. These notifications do not appear as formal notifications - you have to keep reviewing the list of notifications until it silently turns up. MobiControl never actually pops up a notification/request.

By following the above, I've managed to install on 3 out of 5 devices now and will try the other 2 when I can get my hands on the devices.

I hope this helps someone else!

Well, of course, I know that now. But I couldn't find anything in the documentation to tell me that, and the Premium support team at Soti didn't seem to know this either. Trial and error gave me the solution.

Of more concern is the fact that I cannot get any work profile device to give me a notification so that I can authorise the installation. It's hidden away in the list of previous notifications, and never pops up on the screen even when the device is awake. The device sits there awaiting permission, without ever actually requesting it, and the server eventually gives up.

Thank you.

I am still struggling with this, and Soti have yet to find a resolution. I feel as though I am missing some obvious piece of information which everyone else knows.

To summarise, we have a mixture of Android Enterprise fully managed, and work profile devices and we push an in-house application to them as an apk file. Deployment works perfectly for fully managed devices, but hardly at all for work profile devices. We have the same experience using a profile, and an application policy.

For work profile devices, Soti attempts to deploy the app and awaits permission from the user, but the device does not actually ask for the user's permission, and after 15-30 minutes the server times out with an error. On further investigation, I discovered a notification in the notification list, but the notification *never* pops up. So, if you don't know to look for it, you never see it - which defeats the purpose of notifications.

Worse, when I have subsequently deployed an update, there is no notification even in the notifications list. So there is literally no way of deploying an update other than deleting the app and re-deploying it. Which is obviously not practical and renders the MDM useless for these devices.

Has anyone had any similar experience and figured out how to resolve it?

Is there some restriction with notifications in work profile mode? I have checked all the settings that I can find, and have notifications for MobiControl (in work profile) enabled.

The devices are running a mixture of Android 10, 11 and 12, and MobiControl is cloud-based, version  15.6.3.1018.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for replying. This was raised under case C00668680 last July, and was closed without resolution in November.

It was concluded that it was not possible to push an app update notification to an Android device with a work profile.

To be clear, I have not said that there is a 10-15 minute delay and that it occasionally does not install. Quite the contrary. I have said that it *never* pushes the app update to a work profile device and that, after 15-30 min, Mobi Control gives up. This is not a delay, it's a fail.

Essentially, the device receives a notification but it does not inform the user. The user only sees the notification if they look for it - it *never* pops up on their screen. So I have to push the update, and then contact each user to ask them to swipe for notifications and look for the one relating to the app update. If this doesn't happen within a short time window, the update fails.

This is in addition to the fact that additional permissions for installing apps have to be set after the profile is installed, which I discovered by trial & error. Without those permissions, the app can't be installed at all, even if the user seeks out a notification - even though the app is installed ok when the profile is first deployed. The problem is with updates. 

I have been unable to install an app update to *any* work profile device (BYOD) without manually deploying the update on each device. It works perfectly on managed devices.

I've also been unable to install a COPE profile and this is currently under investigation in case C00733849.

I hope you can help.

Thank you.