Using Custom Fields as Wildcards

Scalefusion Dashboard gives you the ability to define custom fields and set values against them for each device. These custom fields can be used as wildcards when defining configurations for Play For Work applications or used in Device Profile to override the default url.

This document helps you understand on how to define the custom fields, set values for them and then use them for your Play For Work app configurations and specify a device specific custom URL.

Before you Start

1. Make sure you are signed into Scalefusion Dashboard.
2. You have set up Android for Work and have some Play For Work applications.

Step 1 - Defining & Setting Values for Custom Fields

In this step we will see how to define custom fields and set their values in bulk. These custom fields will be used as wildcards in the subsequent steps.

Method 1: For devices already enrolled

1. Sign In to Scalefusion Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Devices tab.
3. Click on the 3 dots menu and select Set Custom Fields as shown below,

   

4. You would see a dialog as shown below. This dialog has two options,
   1. Field Name - You can use this section to create custom fields and define their types.
   2. Field Values - For each of the fields that you have defined, you can set values for each enrolled device.
5. To define Fields and their types, click on Field Name tab. Here enter the field name and select the corresponding type of this field. For eg. if the field is email id the type should be Email. The field types can be one of the following:
   String
   Integer
   Email
   Boolean
   Click on ADD MORE FIELD to add a new field
   After defining field names click SAVE.

   

6. You can add a maximum of twenty (20) custom fields.
7. To set values for these newly created custom field, click on the Field Values tab and click DOWNLOAD CSV,
   Values for custom fields can also be set from Device Groups which are then applicable on all devices in the group.

   

8. A CSV file will be downloaded to your computer. The downloaded file name will have the "devices_yyyy-mm-dd-xx.csv" pattern. Depending upon the number of devices that you have, it may take longer to download this file.
9. Once the file is downloaded, locate the file on your computer and open in an editor that can edit csv files. I have used TextEdit on a Mac as shown below.
   Do NOT EDIT the first four fields, that is device_name, device_id, IMEI_No, Serial_No. These are used as mappings against device and editing them will corrupt the file.
10. You can add or modify the values of custom fields separated by commas as shown. You can choose not to enter values for devices that you don't want to or add only the values required. In the screenshot below I have added all values for FrontDeskTab, CallCentreDevice, but left the device named Joe Root empty and for Store Kentucky device added only the email and defaulturl fields. Once done save the file locally on your computer.
11. Now navigate back to the Scalefusion Dashboard and upload the file in the dialog shown at Step 7 above. If the CSV could be read properly and there were no errors, then you would see the following confirmation.
12. That's it! You have successfully added new custom fields and set the values for them. You can check those values against the device, by clicking on the device and in the device details page, clicking on the Settings Menu (Gear Icon) > Set Custom Properties

Method 2: For devices that are not yet enrolled

Custom fields can also be configured before device's enrollment and data can be uploaded using their Serial number. Once device is enrolled the custom fields with the data will be automatically assigned to it.

1. In Devices section, define custom fields as explained in #1 to #6 above and Save
2. Now, navigate to Device & User Enrolment > IMEI/Serial # based enrollment and download the custom CSV. The fields you defined in Custom fields are visible as additional columns in the CSV.

   

3. Now, add values for custom fields and upload the CSV again.

   

1. This is how data for custom fields can be entered before device's enrollment.

After enrollment, if you go to Devices section > View Details > Settings (gear icon) > Set Custom Properties, the custom properties box that opens will contain the values under all the fields (as entered above).

Step 2 - Using Custom fields in Play for Work App configurations

Assuming that you have set up Android for Work account and approved the GMail application to your Play for Work apps. In this step we will see how to create dynamic app-configurations using custom fields.

1. In this step we will see how to use the email and username custom fields that we created above in Step - 1 > 6.
2. In Scalefusion Dashboard navigate to Application Management > PLAY FOR WORK APPS,
3. Click on Gmail to see the extended settings panel.
4. In the Extended settings panel, click on App Configurations tab,
5. Click on CREATE to create a new configuration. You will be shown a configuration dialog.
6. Give the configuration a name and here in the fields for email and username use $device.email and $device.username respectively,
7. Click on SAVE to save the configuration. Once saved it will appear under App Configurations as shown below.

   

8. Now you can publish this configurations to your Device Profiles & Devices where you have installed GMail application from Play for Work.

Step 3 - Overriding the Default URL using Custom Fields

You might have a business use-case where you are setting up Scalefusion as a Kiosk Browser at multiple locations and at each location you want a different URL to be the default URL. With custom fields, instead of creating multiple profiles, you can create one profile with a default URL and then choose a custom field to override that at a device level. This section describes how to achieve it.

1. We will use the defaulturl field created in Step-1 > 6 above.
2. In Scalefusion Dashboard, navigate to Device Profiles & Policies > Device Profile and start creating or editing a profile.
3. Navigate to KIOSK/LAUNCHER SETTINGS tab and click on SINGLE APP MODE section.
4. If you select Scalefusion Browser as the default app, then you will be shown the following options,

   

5. Now you can specify a default launch URL and additionally you can choose to override with a custom field. Select Override With Device Custom Property and choose the property you want to use as shown below,

   

6. Click on UPDATE PROFILE to save the profile. This will send a push to all the devices where this profile is applied and the following can be observed on devices,
   1. For all the devices where the value for the field defaulturl is set on Dashboard, they will use this URL as the launch URL.
   2. For all the devices where the value the field defaulturl is NOT set on Dashboard, they will use the default launch URL.

What are the other Configurations where Custom fields can be Used?

1. Wi-Fi Configurations:
   1. The Wi-Fi SSID field and the password fields accept $device. and $user. custom fields.
   2. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the Wi-Fi configuration is not pushed to that device.
2. Hotspot Configurations:
   1. The Hotspot SSID field and the password fields accept $device. and $user. custom fields.
   2. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the Hotspot configuration is not pushed to that device.
3. Exchange & Email Configurations:
   1. The email/username and password fields accept $device., $user. and $group. custom fields.
   2. The email/username field accepts $user.email for an employee owned device.
   3. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the configuration is not pushed to that device.
4. Play For Work App Configurations
   1. Use $device., $user. or $group. custom field in any of the configuration fields. You can also use $user.email for your employee owned devices.
   2. However please verify that the data type of the custom field is correct. That is if a configuration accepts String and you are specifying a Numeric value via the custom field, then it may not work.
   3. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the configuration is not pushed to that device.
5. iOS App Configurations
   1. Custom fields are accepted only for String and String Array data types.
   2. Use $device. or $group. custom field in any of the configuration fields. You can also use $user.email for your employee owned devices.
   3. In case of a String Array, make sure that there is NO space between two entries.
      1. Working Example: $device.bookname,$device.author
      2. Wrong: $device.bookname, $device.author
   4. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the configuration is not pushed to that device.
6. Windows Single App Mode
   1. Use $device. or $group. to specify the username when you are setting up your Windows machines as Kiosk and have multiple users on the device.
   2. If for a particular device custom property is not defined/available, then the configuration is not pushed to that device.
7. User Management
   1. Create custom fields for users by going to 3 dots menu in Enrollment Configurations > User Enrollment on Dashboard and add the values against each user in the User Details section or add values for multiple users in the Field Values section.

      

   2. Use $user. custom field in any of the configuration fields.
8. User Authenticated Enrollment of Kiosk devices
   1. Custom Properties can be also used for user based enrolled devices.
9. Custom payloads
   1. Custom Properties defined for devices and users, can also be used in custom payloads for iOS, macOS and Windows.
   2. Use $device.custom_property_key or $user.custom_property_key and they would be replaced with the device or user specific value.

As you can see, with the custom fields, you can make your configurations completely dynamic and use them across devices. Do let us know if you run into any issues while using this feature.