One task I am often faced with in managing our iOS devices is finding ways to help our users help themselves to resolve issues on their devices. This can be something as simple as encouraging them to update iOS, freeing up space or performing actions based upon specific vision. One great way to do this in the Casper Suite is utilizing smart mobile device groups based upon specific conditions. This can be criteria like last iCloud backup update, free space, battery level, IOS version and a host of other options. As an example, we use a smart mobile device group where the criteria of membership is based upon apps installed NOT in our app catalog. in the past we would notify students by setting wallpaper on their device encouraging them to delete any on authorized applications.
However, this was a manual process involving going to the device group, selecting the option to run command and setting wallpaper. in Casper 9.96, which was recently released with support for iOS 10, there’s a new feature called automated management. Automated management allows for a wallpaper to be set on devices entering a mobile device group. Specifically, I can now and create a Smart mobile device group where devices with apps not in the App Catalog receive a wallpaper advises the user of how they can resolve the issue, ie – uninstall apps. You can take this one step further by creating a configuration profile preventing users from changing wallpaper.
An advantage to this over sending a push notification or web clip to the device is it is right in the users face and they notice when their wallpaper is gone.
Some additional reasons this can be useful: Reminding people that haven’t had a backup in the last week to backup their device, updating iOS if not on the most recent version after three weeks, sending an important school reminders to students, letting a graduating class know how they can back up their data or, in the case of a severe emergency, communicating important information.