iOS - Managed App Config for "Settings" (enabling location services and set time zone)

[mriske]

Hello,

we recently implemented Meraki SM and i'm now struggling to enable the mentioned settings.

I want to force enable the "location services" for setting the automatic time zone, because they default to "Los Angeles" and we are in Germany...

The devices are supervised and fully managed and "Turn the Date & Time 'Set Automatically' feature to ON and disallow user disabling" in the Restictions is disabled.

Following settings are enabled in a profile:

Privacy and Lock:

- Allow Location Tracking

- Allow SSID tracking

I also enabled the managed app config for "settings":

Key: SettingsCommand.Command.Settings.TimeZone

Type: Text

Value: Europe/Berlin

But nothing seems to work, as the clients stay in the wrong time zone.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[PaulF · Accepted solution]

A quick question: Did you "skip" location in your ADE profile? Turning location on for apps and settings afterwards is painful and cannot be done systematically: If you've no user acceptance of the ability for location, then setting automatically won't work

However, that's not actually the answer to the question, which is: How doing I set region systematically? I'll feed this back to the product team

[mriske]

Thanks for the fast reply and yes, i skipped the location setting in the ADE profile.

The enrolled devices are stationary and only using one app, which also does'nt require location permission.

[PaulF]

Thanks for confirming: But location is used for other things, not just apps. The system needs the user to confirm they are okay with location before you'll be able to use "set location / time / time zones tc" automatically

[mriske]

Okay, good to know. I'll try this out tomorrow with a new ADE profile.

But it would also be great, if there is an option or a way to set the time zone or region manually through the settings in SM

[PaulF]

have already fed this back 🙂 Good luck!

[walkman]

Hey Paul,

there is a MDM payload for setting the timezone:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicemanagement/settingscommand/command/settings/timezone

It would be great if this would be added, I've already asked in the past but gotten no response.

[PaulF]

Hi @walkman 

So, the ability to do things on an Apple device comes in two flavors:

Profile and Commands

Now, if you've ever played with Apple configurator, you'd have noticed that you can create a mobile config and add that to a device. You can do the same with SM, just in case there's anything we don't support right now, or you have complexity that the UI just can't handle.

Now, setting the timezone is NOT a profile, but a command. That's handled differently to a profile, which is why you can't upload a mobileconfig to set the time zone

However, all that aside, I made a strong case with product management and explained that, if you don't set the location to "allow" at the time of enrollment, then confusion can occur with regards to where the device thinks it is.

Watch this space.

[walkman]

Hey @PaulF ,

thank you for the explanation, I didn't realize the timezone setting wasn't a payload. That kinds makes it worse though, since as you said, you can't go the alternative route through Apple Configurator. 

I know you said you made a strong case for it to be added now, but it would be nice if, in the future, features like this would be added in a timely manner. I think this setting has been available for 1-2 years now. Knowing that makes having to go through dozens of iPads to set the timezone/enable location services even more frustrating. 

I've had colleagues asking if we can switch to JAMF since there's a few other similar cases were MDM features just don't get added or are very late to SM. It doesn't seem like SM is a priority for you guys.

[PaulF]

And that's why this community exists... So you can feedback what it is that you need. If there's anything else missing that you think we need, create a new post with the missing feature, and the business problem / use case behind it

[walkman]

Here's a thread about the time zone issue from 2018:

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Mobile-Device-Management/SM-Setting-Time-Zone-for-Devices/m-p/144486...

I replied to it in March but got no answer.