Hello everyone,
As we kickstart a new year, we are pleased to update you on enhancements we’ve made in the areas of signup and device enrollment and give you an advanced look at some features we’ll be adding in the near future.
Background
We’ve heard from many customers that they prefer being able to administer Android management capabilities (e.g signing up for Android Enterprise, logging into the Managed Play store, etc.) using their corporate email address rather than a gmail address. This provides increased security, along with better administrative capabilities including self-service fixes for lost account credentials and changing access when team members change. We’ve also heard that for knowledge worker devices, customers prefer being able to log in to their devices with their work email, and being able to have the convenience of shared experiences across their phone and desktop. (More details can be found in this Android Enterprise blog post)
To improve the experience for both IT admins and end users, we’ve been working on changes in signup and enrollment that emphasize the use of work email accounts, and minimize Managed Google Play accounts except for dedicated devices that don't have logged in users.
Here is an update on our recent announcements as well as our plans for the next few quarters:
1) Improved signup Flow (Launched and rolled out to all EMMs)
In Q2 2024, we announced a new signup flow that encourages all new customer IT admins to sign up with their corporate email rather than a gmail account. We also made it possible to bind multiple EMM instances to a customer’s domain to allow for using multiple EMMs simultaneously in testing and in production. As of July 2024, all of our EMM partners have adopted this new flow so new customer signups should use managed Google Domains by default.
2) New Android Enterprise enrollment flow
In early Q3 2024 for EMM partners with solutions based on Android Management API, we added the ability to enable “Authenticate using Google” which allows managed Google Accounts with work email addresses to be enrolled for end users. In addition, we added a new enrollment method, which is the ability to trigger enrollment by adding managed Google accounts directly from the Settings>Accounts section in Android OS.
Enabling “Authenticate using Google” requires our EMM partners to make some changes to allow userless dedicated devices to enroll without being prompted to add a work account, but all AMAPI partners should be working to adopt these changes and all EMMs will be enabled by Q1 2025.
For EMM Partners that build custom solutions based on Play EMM API, similar new enrollment capabilities will be available to begin development starting in Q1 2025.
3) Upgrade Managed Google Play Enterprises to Managed Google Domains (Q1 2025)
Next, following up on our new signup flow from earlier in the year, we are making it possible for ALL organizations to upgrade their Managed Google Play accounts enterprises, and have their binding moved to their managed Google domain. This will involve switching out the gmail addresses used by IT admins for currently bound enterprises and replacing them with work email addresses associated with a managed Google domain.
4) Upgrading users to Managed Google accounts (later 2025)
Finally, later in 2025, we’re going to be offering the capability to upgrade end user Managed Google Play accounts installed on devices to managed Google accounts corresponding to user email addresses. Stay tuned for more details in the coming quarters.
We extend our thanks to the AE community for your continued support and collaboration. As we continue to enhance the signup and device enrollment experience, we encourage you to stay tuned for more updates and exciting developments in the coming quarters. Plus, feel free to let us know below if you are interested in hearing more about any of the above.
The Android Enterprise Team
