Rugged Device Management

Overview

Rugged devices are a boon to several industries with tough work environments like manufacturing, mining, construction, transportation, agriculture, healthcare, and the defence sector. Their robust design makes them withstand extreme temperatures, humidity, powerful shocks or vibrations, abrasive and dusty conditions. As these devices cater to the unique requirements of the mobile workforce, an increasing number of companies are going rugged. This implies, more number of devices need to come under the umbrella of management. Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP(MDM) is a simple and comprehensive solution, which lets you manage rugged devices along with non-rugged (knowledge-worker) devices, from a single interface. MDM ensures easy deployment, provisioning, and security for Android devices running OS 4 or later versions, including legacy devices from various leading OEMs. The support is extended to ruggedized laptops and handhelds running Windows 10.

Benefits

  • Quickly enroll multiple devices and at once
  • Provision devices with specific applications and policies
  • Protect corporate data as well as the devices
  • Seamlessly troubleshoot devices at field work

Enrollment

  • On-boarding devices to MDM MSP is a simple task with automated enrollment methods. Zero Touch Enrollment is one-time and ensures mandatory management of Android devices. Also, Zero Touch Enrollment provisions devices as Device Owner, paving the way for advanced settings to be configured and empowering IT admins with complete control over the devices.
  • Devices can also be enrolled via EMM Token enrollment which requires minimal admin intervention, provided Google Play Service is enabled.
  • Windows 10 devices can be enrolled via Windows Entra ID(formerly Azure AD) enrollment and AutoPilot, which ensures mandatory management of devices.

Provisioning

  • Set up devices easily
    One of the fundamental requirements in an organization is to ensure that devices connect to a secure Wi-Fi network. This can be achieved by configuring the Wi-Fi profile on MDM MSP. Other account related profiles supported by MDM MSP include E-mail, VPN, and Exchange Active Sync. Configuring these profiles minimizes the work performed by the users to set up devices.
  • Distribute Apps and files
    • Devices being used in construction sites and other industries have specific apps installed, to make work easier for workers. Most of these are business critical apps required to assess firsthand observational data, perform data analysis or computational tasks. Using MDM, you can distribute Store apps and Enterprise apps to devices, silently install/ uninstall apps as well as manage app updates, thereby managing the entire life-cycle of apps.
    • Single purpose devices can be provisioned as Kiosk, which means that devices can be locked down to a single app or a set of apps, along with the customizing device settings.
    • Unauthorized apps can be blocklisted, preventing users from installing them on the devices. MDM permits blocklisting of pre-installed apps and apps installed by the user.
    • Corporate documents can be made available to the users on their devices. MDM supports a wide range of document formats and ensures the documents are viewed securely using the ManageEngine MDM app's Document Viewer.

Security

MDM lets you configure specific profiles for pro-actively securing corporate data.

  • Device passcode, being the first layer of security, can be set on the devices based on the security standards of the organization. Device functions like camera, screen capture, and other capabilities like internet sharing and file transfer, can be restricted.
  • You can restrict users from uninstalling mission-critical apps on the devices.
  • Sensitive data present on the devices can be encrypted for storage, which is required to achieve regulatory compliance and to prevent data loss. Users can be restricted from accessing specific apps, documents, and other resources based on the device location. For Android devices, this can be achieved through Geofencing, which involves creating a virtual fence around the workplace such as a warehouse or a manufacturing unit and a triggering a response each time a device enters or leave the fence, like notifications to the administrator or to execute any of the security commands.

A number of reactive measures can be taken using the security commands supported by MDM.

  • In case of missing or stolen devices, you can enable Lost Mode on Android devices and also ensure that the data on the devices is secure, using the security commands like Remote lock, Complete/ Corporate wipe, etc.
  • You can remotely trigger an alarm on a device which sounds until the device is unlocked.
  • Remotely assist your field workers by taking control of their Android devices and troubleshooting problems in real-time. MDM lets you communicate to the device users via Remote chat, which additionally supports Remote commands to lock or reboot devices and perform various other actions right from the MDM console.

Asset management

As rugged devices are mostly used for field work and are outside the office premises, an asset tracking system is required for effective management of the devices. MDM MSP has a robust asset tracking system. Vital information like the device model, IMEI number, and network information of the managed devices can be obtained. Also, a history of the locations traversed by the devices can be maintained.