How to auto upgrade private Google Play app?
- 12 September 2019
- SOTI MobiControl - Android
5 Answers- 0 Upvote
- 1 Follower
5 Answers
Are the devices enrolled with Device Owner or Profile Owner? Presumably DO if you’re using them with kiosk which would imply a COSu /Dedicated Device use case. Assuming you have them managed by DO, a requirement for forced silent app updates, then you’d also need to mark the App Catalog apps as Mandatory instead of Suggested. Mandatory will be a push operation of sorts whereas Suggested requires user intervention as you have encountered.
So I've made sure the App Catalog app is marked as Mandatory, but I'm still not seeing any devices get updated. The devices are in lockdown/kiosk mode, so I guess they're enrolled with Device Owner.
Do the devices have access to the Play store from the network that they're connected to? Can you open the Play Store app on the devices and see the applications that have been approved?
Please provide the following:
- Version and build numbers of your MobiControl server and device agent
- Active MDM API's reported on the configuration tab of the device agent
- Firmware version and brand/model of your device
- Do you experience similar problems on the same device with non-private apps (i.e. free public app such as Google Map) from Managed Google Play store?
Version of MobiControl Cloud Server: 14.4.1.1195
Version of Device Agent: 13.8.0 Build 1047
Active MDM API's: Advanced Android Plus 1.0, Work Managed Device, RC+ (1.16.0.100)
We have multiple devices we're using. We have Nokia 2.2, Alcatel TCL 9027W, and Samsung Tab A SM-T387T. Not sure what you're looking for when you say firmware version. All the devices are running Android 8.1 and up.
We don't have any non private apps installed on the devices. I can try to think of an app that updates often and add it, but no idea if non private apps are updating. I would hope that they would be.
And to answer Matt's question, as I mentioned in the OP, the only way I can get the app to upgrade is by remote controlling into the device with Administrator mode, going to the Application Catalog in the MobiControl app, and updating from there. However, when I was going through and getting the above info and went to the Application Catalog, and it looked like the latest version had been updated, however, when I checked the app version through the app and through the device details in the Soti cloud console, the app version was not showing the latest. I then went into the google play store and clicked on the app, and there was an update available. After updating the app manually through the play store, the app and console's device details now shows the correct updated version.
There's definitely some disconnect going on here. I felt like the apps on our devices had updated once before as expected, but this last update didn't seem to work. The device agent's app catalog showed that the latest version had been installed, but in fact it hadn't. Sounds like a bug. I'm sure I can get some video/screenshots of what I'm seeing and the process I just described.
Thanks for your guys' help