VPP App Configuration

Description

VPP Apps are all well and good, but what if you need to customise the experience in some way.  Some App developers provide key/value pairs to do just that.

Requirements 

Nothing more than an Apple Business or School Manager account, configured with FileWave for VPP, and an App with support for configuration preferences.

Directions

Within the contents of a VPP Fileset, you will find a tab called 'Configuration'

In this example, the configuration is for the Microsoft Edge Browser.  Microsoft provide the details regarding key/value pairs available:

• Microsoft Edge App Configuration

Consider a list of URLs to block.  It can be seen from the Microsoft KB, the key/value pairs are:

• Key: URLBlocklist
• Value: Array of chosen URLs to block, each of which should be a string

When first opening a VPP Fileset > Configuration tab, the setting will be set as 'None'.  Clicking on this, it can be set as 'Configuration':

Once set as Configuration, click 'Edit'

Imagine that the desired URL to block is the FileWave KB, then the setting would appear as:

Note, there are multiple 'Type' options for each key:

As suggested, this is an Array.  Each item in this Array, for this example, should be a String.  Add as many strings as required for each URL to block.

Once associated with a device, on receipt of the Fileset, not only will the App be installed, but attempts to access the blocked URL should fail:

Similar options exist for other browsers, e.g Chrome.  For each chosen App to configure, refer to the relevant App Developer for necessary details.

Taking Chrome one step further, where Google Admin Console is in use, it is possible to generate a token for browser management.  The Configuration tab can be used to push the token as part of the App Configuration.  Using this method, it is then possible to manage the browser through the Google Admin Console, rather than supplying each desired key/value pair for required management.

More details can be found on Google's Cloud Management Enrolment pages:

• Enrol Google cloud-managed Chrome browsers

Unfortunately, many Apps have no configuration options, however, saying that, some everyday Apps, like those mentioned above, do indeed have options that are typically desired.

It is possible to contact developers of Apps if there was some configuration that was felt to be a requirement; perhaps configuration would be added by request!