In unified endpoint management, profiles are the fundamental building block for applying policies to devices. Profiles have been the cornerstone of Workspace ONE UEM for as long as it has existed, right from the early days of AirWatch. Over the years, we’ve extended our profile functionality with support for more operating systems and added support for more payloads as part of yearly OS releases.
However, the look and feel of profile management in the Workspace ONE UEM console has remained largely the same during this time. In addition, as we continue to add support for non-traditional endpoints, and as operating system vendors release new features with increasing frequency, the profile framework was due for an overhaul.
Today, we’re proud to announce a brand new look and feel for profiles in the Workspace ONE UEM console, built on a game-changing architecture update that will enable rapid feature delivery. These changes are available to try for Android and tvOS profiles on shared SaaS UAT environments. You can learn more and join the VMware Digital Workspace Beta Program at https://beta-ea.vmware.com/key/eucblog.
In addition to this architecture update, we’ve also made several quality-of-life improvements to the profile user experience. Let’s take a look!
The biggest change is one you can’t see
The rapid stream of management capabilities over the years has brought a corresponding increase in usage of a powerful feature of the profile framework—the custom settings profile. Simply put, Workspace ONE UEM can support so much more than what is visible in the profile UI.
However, the rapid pace at which we support new features on the device outpaces how quickly we can add them to the console GUI. In these situations, customers ultimately resort to using a custom settings profile to do what the GUI cannot. While custom settings are powerful, they can be tedious to configure and manage.
The new profile framework we’re introducing today dramatically increases the pace at which we can add new options by making the profile user interface in the console data-driven. To understand a data-driven profile, imagine that adding a new payload or a new restriction in a profile would no longer require our engineering team to go through the process of building the corresponding interface in the Workspace ONE console. Instead, it simply requires updating the definition file from which the profile UI is rendered.
This brings development time from days down to hours, which in turn changes the game for rapid feature delivery. Not only does it make life easier for our product managers and engineers—much more importantly, it allows customers to take advantage of the latest and greatest device managements features faster and without having to build a custom profile.
Now, let’s go over our additional quality-of-life improvements.
Search is now front and center
We’ve made search the forefront of the new user experience so you can easily find the payload you’re looking for.
Review payloads before adding them
You no longer have to add a payload to a profile to review its contents. Simply expanding a payload will show you all the options available. If you’d like to add it to the profile and configure it, just click ‘Add’.
Separation of assignment and configuration
The General tab has now been removed in lieu of a separate page for assignment and deployment.
What’s next?
As mentioned, these profile updates are available only for Android and tvOS on shared SaaS UAT environments. They will be generally available in an upcoming release. Other platforms will also move to the new experience in a staged rollout, following the release for Android and tvOS.
After general availability, we’ll be taking advantage of the new data driven framework to catch up on adding all the profile options that were only possible with custom settings.
We encourage you to try out the new experience and provide feedback in our Digital Workspace Beta Program Community (look for the ‘WS1 UEM – Profile Redesign’ beta project). We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and can’t wait for you try the new experience!
