Android Enrolment on VMware AirWatch

So I am going to be honest as many of you know I use Apple devices most the time just down to their simplicity and integrations but recently I have had the chance to use the latest version of AirWatch and a newer based Android Device.

The enrolment process is not quite as slick as iOS where it forces the user to enrol with your companies deployment but it can be as simple as a few taps (7 plus a few more) and a scan of a QR code. You may find as an IT department you still enrol users devices anyway so this won’t bother you that users may try and skip this step. At a guess I am sure some vendors will catch up and have a portal similar to Apple DEP before long.

The actual term for this in the Android world is called “Work Managed” but you will need to ensure you have your Google for Work set up before you do this or you won’t be able to push any applications to the device. This can also negate the need for the Google Play store on the device and your users needing separate accounts or everyone sharing a department account. I will do a separate post on the Android at Work as this also offers some great features.

But back to the enrolment, its as simple as open the box, pop the SIM in the phone, power it on. From here tap ‘Welcome’ 7 times and this will then take you to a hidden screen. Join the WiFi to save data if you wish and then this will download a QR reader. You will need to generate your own code using this guide from here and I found leaving the username password as it was caused the agent to get confused then ask me for that users credentials so I didn’t have to create unique codes. I used this website to generate my QR code

I used my top level group ID as when the user authenticates this should override this if they are in other smart groups. You can easily find this by going to the top of your organisation and then hovering over the name for a moment and this box will appear

Once you have added a user if you have your profiles and apps set up they should start streaming down to the device. I do certainly like the fact Boxer can be setup to auto configure from the user who enrolled and all they then need to put in is their password to start getting their emails. This is also quite nice if you wish to offer a BYOD or let user have their personal account on their phone as the in built client can then provided segregation.

The hidden power of doing it this way is when the user leaves despite being a good or bad leaver if the device is reset you can get back into it as the device is managed by the organisation. I have seen many devices been handed back into IT that have personal Google account on of which we can then not reactivate the device easily without the leavers details.

If you want to learn more about AirWatch I am going to be doing a series of posts or head over here for more information