How your business can better manage its mobile devices remotely
With the right technology in place, your business can better manage its mobile devices remotely and ease the workload on their often over-stretched IT staff.
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” The days of IT departments trying to resolve issues over the phone before reluctantly travelling from one building to another to fix one computer-related glitch after another are long gone. Armed with the right device control infrastructure, your IT folk can also cancel any planned tours to install updates or deploy new systems or applications too. All ASUS M Series tablets have been specially engineered for business use, and they’re particularly suited for life running single applications in what’s known as ‘kiosk mode’. Better still, they’ve been designed to simplify the lives of system administrators by coming preloaded with the ASUS Device Admin for Mobile (ADAM) system. How does ADAM work? ADAM includes a comprehensive set of APIs designed to give system administrators full control over ZenPad M Series tablets, both locally and remotely. They’re designed for vertical markets and make it possible to deploy – and control – Android-powered tablets in several ways. A system administrator can manage everything through their own ZenPad M series tablet, which allows them access to any managed devices via ADAM’s user-friendly, touch-optimised web interface. The set of APIs include controls for restricting the device’s functionality and its access to networks on a hardware level. For example, selected ports can be blocked for security reasons to prevent data being transferred to or from the device. While system administrators can also disable the various wireless connectivity technologies, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi should it prove necessary. There are also various anti-theft measures built in. Administrators can access the front and rear cameras remotely to see who’s currently using the device – plus send those photos on to the police if necessary. Crucially, admins can also lock or wipe the device remotely to protect its data from falling into the wrong hands. In a similar vein, system administrators also have full control over what apps the device can run. They choose exactly which apps get installed – and can both install and enable/disable them remotely – plus apply restrictions to what websites can be accessed from the device if connectivity has been allowed. Developers can also deploy custom-built applications (and updates) from the ADAM web interface – much quicker than side-loading them all individually.
Kiosk applications made easy One use for ADAM is to set up tablets for single-application – or Kiosk – mode. This applies mainly to public places – for example, allowing customers to order from a menu, enabling healthcare professionals to get diagnosees or patient information, or simply to provide warehouse workers with an easy way to check inventory and order new stock. An optional add-on comes in the form of ADAM Connected, which simplifies the deployment and updating of hundreds of devices over the web – perfect if your business is spread across multiple locations. Lots of clever little touches prove how well-designed ADAM is: you can alert users that an update is incoming by sending a message remotely, then lock the device prior to updating it. Worried that an update hasn’t taken on a specific device? ADAM allows you to remote-screenshot the device to confirm it’s been installed. Find out more here
