The simple control logic of the ManagdWALplus XML configuration file is explained here. Please also refer to the alphabetical list of XML file keys and values for a very up-to-the point brief overview of keys and values. This list has pointers to more in-depth explanations of most of the different keys and values.
OK- so how is the ManagdWALplus app controlled?
There are two main sources:
- Bundled keys and values. Most of these will serve as defaults, when matching XML settings are missing. There are notable exceptions, however, please read on.
- XML transferred keys and/or values.
Remotely controlling the behaviour of ManagdWALplus, XML keys and/or values is the name of the game. You can often rely on the defaults, hopefully given sensibly defined values from us at Royal Cloud Solutions. One example of a setting is the screensaver timeout of the app, typically of great use when the app is run in single app mode and/or ordinary kiosk mode. Using defaults, after five minutes of non-use, the screen is dimmed by the app to whatever low screensaver light level is defined, with a default of 1 percent as minimum. If you can live with these defaults settings, you are all set and ready to go in regard to this setting. If not, add the keys and values to your XML file, and push it.
So why not just push all settings, then, you may ask? Not all enterprise mobility management (EMM), modern (mobile) device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM) or unified endpoint management (UEM) will accept that much XML data, or uplink capacity may restrain size under given circumstances. In fact, we have shoehorned the XML keys and values already, trying to minimize the size, using abbreviated keys and defaults.
Note that there are default settings for all defined XML keys/values, and that all can be overridden, and some must be overriden, as explained below, to put the ManagdWALplus into useful service.
All right, on to the business, with an important definition first:
What are qLIs? This is a phrase which we would like to believe to be one of our “inventions”: quick-link items. These are the tabs, buttons (or in the future perhaps menus or similar) that the user selects to get a specific action, such as loading a web page or a (remote or local) web service. The qLIs lie at the heart of ManagdWALplus, including the control of it with not only title (text) and url, but also font type, size and color. Using pictograms to represent qLIs may also on the road to the future, given sufficient interest..
If you run the app withouth any XM such as with a first trial runL, you will see qLIs at the top (in the current version, at least), using the first language defined, at the time being English, together with the associated web resources necessary to get up and running.
The magic happens when you push qLI number 0 for language number 1, and the matching link: All the default qLIs disappear! You would otherwise have to define content for five qLIs, and not all would need that many. This is the only exception to the Rule of defaults: All keys and/or values have sensible defaults that will come into action, if these are not replaced in the XML file pushed with the sole exception of qLI titles (texts) and corresponing URLs. qLI attributes such as font size, font type and font color will however be inherited from defaults.
Another quintessential (but optional) feature is the heartbeat. When enabled, the app will send a “I am alive” to the organizations logging server, typically running Logstash or similar, offering a REST/JSON endpoint. Once enabled, you can transfer a very simple statistics as well: Has a user touched the screen, or not? This may come in handy to simply check whether the device is in use, or not, down to the granularity of which qLI has been used, if enabled. So, for instance, the case is a chemical laboratory offering a chemical index, local info and emergency info, the number of screen touches (but not any details of what has been viewed within the given qLI) since last heartbeat will be collected and transferred, if enabled. Note that this is NOT for personal use, and that the data collected thus are to be used as anonymous usage data for a given group of persons, such as students using a lab. When enabled, the app will, if started in pure kiosk mode or single app autonomous mode, alert the user of this anonymous statistics collection every time a new session has started, adjusting session timers to you specific case.
Document Revision: Feb. 2020. March 2020. Doc. rev.: 0.2 Valid from app rev 0.91.4.