Policy alerts: no way to surpress them?

GavinMcMenemy
Building a reputation

Policy alerts: no way to surpress them?

In our Systems Manager we have an iOS device that has violated our data policy. I am now receiving regular alerts that it is out of compliance. I can't find a way acknowledge the alert. Or take action (am I missing something here? How about throttling their bandwidth somehow?)

I raised a ticket with support and they tell me that there's no way to do this - my only option is to make a feature request.

How is everyone managing this?

Our data allowance rolls over monthly so I am facing the prospect of being emailed regularly for a month about a device I KNOW is out of compliance. I can filter our these emails but I really don't relish the prospect of of hiding alerts (this is how you miss the bad stuff).

According to support, my options are: take the device out of the policy (not great news - also it will stop monitoring the user's data usage) or alter the policy to reflect the correct usage. The latter is inappropriate because this will affect other users using the same policy.

Note that this device ISN'T showing correct usage. And while we did have a word with the user there is little appetite to take the device from them.

So again, how does everyone else manage this?

3 REPLIES 3
GavinMcMenemy
Building a reputation

ps. Is there a way to audit which apps are eating the data alllowance? I can't see that anywhere.

jared_f
Kind of a big deal

From my understanding, you cannot suppress that notification unless you completely disable notifications for the policy. We use AT&T for the business plans, everything is cached on the iPad app that was designed and then syncs when it is back on WiFi. Personally, I prefer Verizon and think that there service is worth the extra few dollars a month - we have had coverage issues with AT&T in the past. But, it all depends where you are located. Unlimited Data has become more affordable and I would recommend speaking to your carrier and checking with others for pricing and negotiate. Especially with business customers, they are very flexible from our experience. 

 

Do you know what apps your users are overusing data on? Is it Safari, Netflix, Spotify, Etc? I would create configuration profiles with network rules to block this. Making sure that data is used for corporate purposes and WiFi is for your personal apps. For example, only allow Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, etc. when the user is on WiFi.If you don't want your users to be always restricted and have them have access to anything until they hit the data limit, I would scope the configuration profile to the violating devices of the data policy. If you wanted to get real nasty, use a whitelist and only whitelist corporate needed applications. I like to let the user know what we are doing and why, I would create a background and add it in that same profile and basically say "You have reached your data quota, until our plan rolls over, your device will be restricted to corporate needed apps only. Please contact the Technology Department with any questions." We do something similar with VPNs and Emulators as they are a problem with data security. Anytime that device updates and it falls into the policy criteria as violated, it gets locked down and the wallpaper gets set and an email is sent. Until it is deleted and updated inventory, it is not usable.

Screen Shot 2018-07-31 at 6.44.27 PM.pngScreen Shot 2018-07-31 at 6.49.44 PM.png

 

This all depends if your devices are supervised (and I hope DEP enrolled so it cannot be bypassed). Please let me know if you have any questions, I would be more than willing to answer or help in any way.

 

Jared

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GavinMcMenemy
Building a reputation

In truth we have more-or-less crippled the devices. Users are not allowed to install anything we haven't whitelisted - there have been serious issues in the past (before my time...).

I'm unsure about a couple of bits of your response.

How do I know which app is consuming the data? I can't find anything in systems manager that graphs or displays data consumption by app.

Some interesting ideas there. Will have to see what I can/can't do.

BTW: I'm in the UK and work in local government so the network choice is limited by what our procurement teams have negotiated. We don't really need to switch providers in any case. This user's usage is an outlier.

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