What do you wish you knew when beginning your Android Enterprise journey?

[ReeceK]

Hello everyone,

I recently marked my 3-year anniversary with Android Enterprise! 🥳

I was reminiscing about the incredible updates, events, and experiences that have made this journey truly memorable. I then wondered what advice I'd offer the earlier version of myself stepping into this world. 

For me, it boils down to emphasizing the value that Android Enterprise brings to customers, and stressing the importance of how our customers value a healthy separation between work and personal life.

Now, it's your turn. Your insights and thoughts might just be the guide that our community needs. Share your wisdom below!

Thanks! 

Reece

[Moombas]

Hi Reece,

congratulations on this 😉

Btt: I think for me it would be:

1. Where to find a list of the relevant models (Enterprise recommended).

2. Have a list of basic guides like Zero-Touch (including DPC), Enrollment and so on.

3. A hint who and where to get in contact with if i need help outside of the MDM support. (Didn't know about this community for a long time)

[ReeceK]

Hi @Moombas,

Appreciate your response and a big thank you for the congratulations; it means a lot. It seems like in your Android Enterprise journey, understanding how to acquire specific details would have been a priority if you had the chance to start anew?

Thanks,

Reece

[Moombas]

Yes, because we do most of the work ourselve and not via 3rd party it was somehow from time to time hard to grab the relevant information. Especially for example what kind of DPC's exist and can be used for enrollment and how and so on.

[ReeceK]

Hey @Moombas 

Out of interest, how did you go about obtaining these lists  of contacts, models and guides?

Thanks,

Reece

[Moombas]

Very much using search engines for the web, some hints here and there but in general it was definitely not easy to collect and i think for someone new it still isn't.

[mattdermody]

• "Zero Touch" Enrollment is a misnomer as its realistically 15-20 taps on the screen per device, especially if you are manually connecting to a WiFi network during the SUW. It's really only Zero Touch on the EMM admin, but you've outsourced the labor to someone on the edge. I find many manufacturer provided AE enrollment methods to be more streamlined with less overhead. 
• Version control with Managed Play is very limited if not non-existent. There are no great ways to lock in on a specific version of an app that is being installed from Managed Play and opt into the upgrades and roll back if there are any issues. Direct APK installation still provides us with way more granularity of version control than Managed Play. 
• Android Enterprise Recommended should be considered the bare minimum set of features that an EMM should offer but EMMs realistically should be evaluated against what additional features they bring to the table beyond base AE features. While I understand that some of the goals of AE were to simplify the market of EMM by establishing common requirements, I think it ultimately has diluted the market by setting the bar low for new entrants into the arena to say they support Android by doing just the bare minimum for AMAPI. 
• Despite DA being forked into DO and PO and the other derivatives, there are still consumer grade policies that negatively affect DO. For example the increased restrictions on scoped storage should not have applied to a DPC granted with DO. If it is an enterprise owned fully managed asset and not a consumer enabled app Android should not be enforcing consumer grade protections like scoped storage restriction. There should at least be an opt in/out model for whether the DPC is granted those sort of elevated permissions under DO. The same could be said about other features like Google Play Protect. Many enterprises don't want Google scanning their business apps on corporate owned fully managed assets and then arbitrarily removing those apps.  

[Moombas]

Hi Matt,
regarding: "Zero Touch" Enrollment is a misnomer 
Yes and no. From IT perspektive it's Zero-Touch because IT admins don't need to do anything on the device, it just enrolls to the MDM and get's it's configuration. But from user perspektive you are right but I'm pretty sure that the naming came from IT perspektive.
And in general i agree, it would be nice to predefine those settings as well but there are differences in the OS versions and OEM versions, so I think this can't be changed.

[ReeceK]

Hello @mattdermody,

Welcome to the community! 😁  I appreciate you taking the time to share your valuable feedback on Android Enterprise.

We're always eager to hear from users like yourself to understand how we can enhance the Android Enterprise experience, If you have any additional thoughts, suggestions, or specific areas you'd like us to focus on, please feel free to continue to share in this community. 

With that said, I'd love to extend an invitation to discuss your feedback further. I'll send you a welcome message detailing the benefits of our community, and we can explore the possibility of scheduling a discussion to delve into your thoughts on Android Enterprise.

Thank you once again for your contribution to the community!

Reece