My understanding is that Managed Configurations are only supported through an App Catalog rule tied to a Managed Enterprise that is binded to your SOTI instance. 

Hi Johnathon,

Is the app a proprietary in-house developed app or a public app downloaded from Google's Managed Google Play store?

Have you been able to deploy the app and required parameters to your test device(s) with an app-catalogue rule?

If so, what is the reason you want to control parameters with a profile?  Is there anything in the profile deployment mechanism you need to use, but is not available in app-catalog rule deployment mechanism? 

If you need to configure some parameters frequently after initial app deployment,  you can update such parameters in the app-catalog rule at any time and the saved change(s) wil thenl be automatically deployed to the target device(s).  To provide the most flexible control using this mechanism,  you should include the app as the only app in a separate app-catalog rule targeted to group(s) of devices that always share the same parameter set.

Thank you Raymond. I have been able to deploy the app on a test device using the app catalog rule. We are setting the server details to the app so that end users do not have to enter it in manually but we need to manage the app going forward. Using the app catalog we're not able to remove or update the app easily across our fleet of 9000 devices. 

Is there a way for us to still control parameters and manage the app using a profile?

As far as I know, what you ask for is currently not supported.

However, you should have no problem removing or updating the app using app-catalog rule for Android Enterprise platform  Multiple device-groups/devices can be precisely selected as rule target.  The effect of smartly picking hundreds of devices with profile filter can be achieved similarly by using filter on virtual device-group and having your app-catalog rule targeted to such virtual device group.  The app should be removed if the app-catalog rule is disabled.  Control should be quite easy if you just include this one app in the app-catalog rule.

Could you give more details on the problem(s) you think you will encounter if you use app-catalog rule rather than profile to deploy/remove/update the app?

Hey Raymond, thanks again for the insight. I didn't realize that deleting the rule is supposed to uninstall the app. When I tried this myself the app stayed on the device. We were also not able to force the app to be install via the rule, the end user has to go through the agent and manually install the app. 

Am I missing a checkbox or step when creating the rule that will allow us to force the app to install and be removed when the rule is disabled?

Regards,

Johnathon

Apparently, my previous post was a bit inaccurate on that part. Disabling an app-catalogue  rule won't work just as disabling a profile.  Instead, you have to deselect the device(s)/device-group(s) from the rule target tab of the app-catalog rule, and the mandatory app that has been silently pushed onto the device(s) will be uninstalled.

For non-mandatory app item in the rule that has been installed on demand by the device end-user, you also have to go to the installed app tab of the device, click on the app item and select "remove program" to get it uninstalled.

If you have hundreds of devices in different device-group(s)  that need to have the apps deployed/removed together at the same time repeatedly, then include them manually/automatically-with-filter in one virtual group (or a hierarchy of virtual groups), and  you can deploy/uninstall simply by assigning/unassigning  the app catalog rule to target this virtual-group in one click.   Similar result can also be easily achieved by moving the virtual-group subtree between 2 parent virtual-groups, one of which is and the other is not a target of the app-catalog rule. 

Whenever any parameters associated with AppConfig framework have been updated in the associated app-catalog rule, the app on the device targeted by the app-catalog rule will be updated accordingly, even if the app is running when the update is being sent.

Hi Johnathon,

Please let me know if you have any further questions regarding your initial post?