ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus

ManageEngine (which is owned by Zoho Corporation) offers a wide range of management tools, such as OpManager. Their mobile device management mobile device management (MDM) offering, Mobile Device Manager Plus (which begins at $2 per device per month) product is offered either standalone or as a part of their Desktop Central desktop and mobile management product suite. Desktop Central made Gartner's magic quadrant for client management tools although they are at the bottom of the list of players. While Mobile Device Manager Plus matches up well with the other products in this roundup, it's missing some key features, such as Windows 10 mobile support and QR codes for registration info, all of which keeps it behind Editors' Choice winners VMware AirWatchand SOTI MobiControlfor now.

That said, the ManageEngine user interface (UI) was one of the most pleasing of this group, with a graphical dashboard and clickable data items. Being able to click on information that needs your attention is an intuitive action, and the ManageEngine dashboard fully supports that thought process. The dashboard also provides quick links to take you to commonly used functions and includes a well laid-out navigation toolbar for accessing other features.

Installation and Device Enrollment Getting signed up for a ManageEngine trial requires filling out some information on their website. Once that's done you're taken right to the log-in page where you will have access to your demo account after entering your username and password. The next step in getting started is to create one or more users and then enroll devices. Bulk enrollment requires the use of a specially formatted CSV file containing email address, platform type, owned by, group name, and UDID. Email and platform are the only two mandatory fields, so you must know what type of device a user has before you can accomplish a bulk enrollment procedure. That might work for corporate-owned devices, but could be problematic for personal ones.

Enrolling individual devices follows the same basic steps. After receiving an email, the user is asked to click on a button to download an app. Enrolling an Android device first downloads the ManageEngine agent from the Google Store followed by a series of information pages. After the application installation completes, you must log in to the ManageEngine site through the app and enter the special one-time code provided in the enrollment email. With that completed, your device is ready to be managed.

Windows mobile support consists of Windows phone 8 and Windows 8.1 at this time. Windows 10 Mobile support is coming in a future update. Enrolling a Windows phone requires entering user information for a new Workplace account in the settings page. You'll need the URL for the ManageEngine server, provided through the enrollment email plus the one-time code. The Copy button comes in handy here as it allows you to copy the long URL needed in the settings page; this cuts down on typing and eliminates the problem of typos.

Before you can register any iOS device, you must configure an Apple Push Notification (APN) cert by downloading a request from the ManageEngine website, uploading the file to the APN site, downloading the Apple PEM file, and finally uploading that file back to the ManageEngine site. Next, you must download the ManageEngine app from the Apple Store on the iPad, and then launch the app to begin the registration process. After acknowledging a number of changes including the loading of a new security profile, your iPad or other iOS device should be good to go.

Management Interface The first thing you see after logging in to your Mobile Device Manager Plus account is the dashboard, which shows information about devices, apps, and platforms in both graphical and numeric forms. A Recent Activity feed on the right-hand side of the dashboard presents a social media-type running annotation of system-related events. It's also possible to rearrange the different widgets to present the information of interest in a way that suits your primary focus areas. I liked the Getting Started pages which appear the first time you select a new function with a flowchart diagram of the steps to complete a specific task.

Mobile Device Manager Plus uses profiles to configure various settings for each device platform. Adding a new profile setting consists of stepping through a series of webpages and choosing the settings you wish to configure. Profiles can be assigned to individual devices or to a group. This makes it possible to create a generic security profile, such as requiring a device PIN, and then assign it to any number of devices or groups. Performing tasks such as locking or wiping a device happens from the device inventory page. I was able to perform a remote lock on all test devices and a remote wipe on the Windows device.

Mobile Device Manager Plus provides a total of 12 predefined reports covering apps, hardware, enrollment, and security. That doesn't match up very well with the likes of Good Technology Secure EMM Suite or VMware AirWatch. Each report has a basic set of information displayed, and can be customized to add or remove additional information by default. The Devices by Model report shows device type, operating system (OS) and version, product name, and model number. An additional 32 fields provide a wide range of information, from IMEI to phone number to information about which features are enabled. Options for saving reports include CSV, PDF, and XLS. It's also possible to schedule any of the reports to run periodically and deliver the results via email. One nice feature here was the ability to limit attachment sizes and send a link to access the report otherwise.

The base price for the ManageEngine Cloud service is $2 per device per month. That puts them near the top of the heap in terms of pricing. And, though it lacks support for Windows 10 and QR codes, it's still a solid product at a very reasonable price.

Source: ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus