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AppConfig to configure Jabber client for iOS

charleswkc
Level 1
Level 1

Hi,

Does anyone know where can I get information on using AppConfig to configure Jabber client for iOS? My plan is to make it a little easier for users to install Jabber (from our enterprise app catalog) and configure.

Currently, users have to go through 2 screens to configure Jabber:

1st screen (connect to server automatically)

username@domain.com

2nd screen (AD credentials to login)

username

password

From my understanding, I can use AppConfig to set configuration keys and values to configure the server information for the users. To do that, the AppConfig information will be set for the Jabber app listing in the enterprise app catalog. When user installs the app and launches it, the server information will be populated with AppConfig. So in this case, the user goes to the 2nd screen directly upon launching the app for the first time.

If I am getting it wrong, please someone let me know as well. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Charles

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Hi David,

Today, the only way to centrally configure/manage settings for Cisco Jabber mobile clients is to use jabber-config.xml.  I am sure you are aware of our Parameters Reference Guide.  Anything outside the reference guide is not supported at the moment.   That doesn’t mean we will never support anything we don’t support today.  We constantly review requests from our customers and partners to evaluate what makes most sense from the technology point of view and the end user experience point of view.  So, if you don’t find parameters in the latest reference guide that you want to use to configure Cisco Jabber for your users, I would ask you to work with your Cisco account team to submit your requirements to us so that they can be prioritized for future releases.  

Having said that, I still believe there might be some immediate improvements we could make for your users.  It doesn’t make sense that you have to go through reset process for all your users. Have you ever worked with your Cisco account team?  Or if you prefer, please send me a quick note to seongho@cisco.com.  I will try to find a way to help you.  If you can, please send me the name of your Cisco account team contact as well.

Lastly, quickly going back to the EMM/MAM topic, today only a handful of keys/parameters can be configured/pre-set via AppConfig for Cisco Jabber.  Most of our customers use it just to pre-populate the information for the very initial screen of Cisco Jabber and the domain information for the service discovery process.  So AppConfig cannot be used if you want to centrally manage all the user settings.  You don’t see any documents from Cisco about AppConfig since how it’s done varies by EMM/MAM vendors.  I have my Cisco Live presentation which shows an example from AirWatch and the list of parameters you can set.  If you are interested, I can share it with you.  Please send me your email.  Thank you so much for your support and interest in Cisco Jabber products.

View solution in original post

6 Replies 6

keglass
Level 7
Level 7

Charles,

Have you checked out this site for more information about AppConfig and Cisco Jabber?

https://www.appconfig.org/company/cisco/

Kelli Glass

Moderator for Cisco Customer Communities

Hi Kelli,

Thanks for the reply. That was the first site I have checked with regards to AppConfig.

I got linked to a documentation, and I can find various ways of configuring Jabber iOS client via URL etc, but nothing to do with AppConfig.

I have checked and exhausted my efforts searching online for the config keys and values but failed to find anything useful for me.

Best Regards,

Charles

Hi Charles,

I am really sorry that your question have been left unanswered for such a long time.  Just in case if you still need information, please send me a quick email "seongho@cisco.com".  I will share with you my Cisco Live presentation. 

DaveLawang
Level 1
Level 1

One of the bigger new contributions by the AppConfig Community will be a standard XML schema for configuring managed iOS apps. iOS managed app configuration allows developers to define settings in an app that can be configured when apps are deployed using MDM. This is useful for filling out information like server addresses or port numbers, or otherwise customizing enterprise apps.

These app configuration settings can be anything a developer wants them to be, which is very powerful, but results in a certain amount of work for IT to do—they have to figure out the settings and get them all loaded into their MDM server to push down with the apps. With the AppConfig Community’s XML schema, common configurations are standardized, and can be built directly into an MDM server and admin UI, simplifying the deployment process.

Source: http://www.brianmadden.com/opinion/AirWatch-MobileIron-IBM-and-JAMF-are-forming-the-AppConfig-Community

Hi,

We're also highly interested in customly configuring certain Jabber Mobile settings in our environment, since the default values are not suited for our daily operations. Since we can't manage certain default JM settings the whole setup is basically an ongoing maintenance nightmare. Don't get me wrong, we love JM but having a way to centrally manage the settings certainly would make our lifes a lot easier.

Let me quickly draw our situation. We manage 1'000+ JM devices on site. On each device we have to change a couple of the default settings by Hand before we hand the device out to the user (which by itself is ridiculous and a huge source for human Errors). But it gets better.

Our password policy requires our users to change their PW every 90d and each time they have changed their PW they need to reset JM in order to enter their new PW. I bet you have already guessed what happens next.

By resetting JM every 90d all of their settings are reset to default values as well (and of course our users have not the slightes clue that they are supposed to change certain JM settings every time they change their PW - and we Technicians have not the slightes control over what kind of JM settings are defined on the devices once a device is out in the field).

Add another 20-40 people that start working in our company each month on top of that and we are somewhere at around 6'000 - 8'000 manual changes of Jabber Mobile settings each year. That is the ongoing maintenance nightmare i was talking about.

As much as we love JM but honestly - it's crazy that we are running this kind of setup in a business environment.

It is a pity that you can control most of the Jabber settings for Jabber Desktop but only a hand full of them for Jabber Mobile.

(Especially the default value "Set to away after 15min of inactivity" is a huge pain to us. Our users are basically required to play on the phone non-stop in order to stay "Available". Turning this setting completely off by default would dramatically improve our situaiton)

Having a way to centrally manage all those settings (Skipping the setup screen, never setting the status to away, no video, etc.) would make our lifes a lot easier.

AppConfig looks very promising in theory but like Charles already mentioned a year ago there is no useful documentation to be found on it. Does anyone know if any good documentation has become available since then?

Or is there any other way to manage (all of) the Jabber Mobile settings?

Best regards,

Dave

Hi David,

Today, the only way to centrally configure/manage settings for Cisco Jabber mobile clients is to use jabber-config.xml.  I am sure you are aware of our Parameters Reference Guide.  Anything outside the reference guide is not supported at the moment.   That doesn’t mean we will never support anything we don’t support today.  We constantly review requests from our customers and partners to evaluate what makes most sense from the technology point of view and the end user experience point of view.  So, if you don’t find parameters in the latest reference guide that you want to use to configure Cisco Jabber for your users, I would ask you to work with your Cisco account team to submit your requirements to us so that they can be prioritized for future releases.  

Having said that, I still believe there might be some immediate improvements we could make for your users.  It doesn’t make sense that you have to go through reset process for all your users. Have you ever worked with your Cisco account team?  Or if you prefer, please send me a quick note to seongho@cisco.com.  I will try to find a way to help you.  If you can, please send me the name of your Cisco account team contact as well.

Lastly, quickly going back to the EMM/MAM topic, today only a handful of keys/parameters can be configured/pre-set via AppConfig for Cisco Jabber.  Most of our customers use it just to pre-populate the information for the very initial screen of Cisco Jabber and the domain information for the service discovery process.  So AppConfig cannot be used if you want to centrally manage all the user settings.  You don’t see any documents from Cisco about AppConfig since how it’s done varies by EMM/MAM vendors.  I have my Cisco Live presentation which shows an example from AirWatch and the list of parameters you can set.  If you are interested, I can share it with you.  Please send me your email.  Thank you so much for your support and interest in Cisco Jabber products.

Hi, I would be interested in your info about configuring Jabber settings in Airwatch