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Mobile Application Management and personally-owned work profiles on Android Enterprise devices in Intune

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In many organizations, administrators are challenged to protect resources and data on different devices. One challenge is protecting resources for users with personal Android Enterprise devices, also known as bring-your-own-device (BYOD). Microsoft Intune supports two Android deployment scenarios for bring-your-own-device (BYOD):

The MAM and the Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile deployment scenarios include the following key features important for BYOD environments:

  • Protection and segregation of organization-managed data: Both solutions protect organization data by enforcing data loss prevention (DLP) controls on organization-managed data. These protections prevent accidental leaks of protected data, such as an end user accidentally sharing it to a personal app or account. They also serve to ensure that a device accessing the data is healthy and not compromised.

  • End-user privacy: MAM separates end user and organization content in managed applications and Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles separate end users content on the device, and data managed by the mobile device management (MDM) administrator. In both scenarios, IT admins enforce policies, such as PIN-only authentication on organization-managed apps or identities. IT admins are unable to read, access, or erase data that's owned or controlled by end users.

Whether you choose MAM or Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles for your BYOD deployment depends on your requirements and business needs. The goal of this article is to provide guidance to help you decide. For more information related to managed Android devices, see Manage Android personally-owned/corporate-owned work profile devices with Intune.

About Intune app protection policies

Intune app protection policies (APP) are data protection policies targeted to users. The policies apply data loss protection at the application level. Intune APP requires app developers enable APP features on the apps they create.

Individual Android apps are enabled for APP in a few ways:

  1. Natively integrated into Microsoft first-party apps: Microsoft 365 (Office) apps for Android, and a selection of other Microsoft apps, come with Intune APP built-in. These Office apps, such as Word, OneDrive, Outlook, and so on, don't need any more customization to apply policies. These apps can be installed by end users directly from Google Play Store.

  2. Integrated into app builds by developers using the Intune SDK: App developers can integrate the Intune SDK into their source code and recompile their apps to support Intune APP policy features.

  3. Wrapped using the Intune app wrapping tool: Some customers compile Android apps (.APK file) without access to source code. Without the source code, the developer can't integrate with the Intune SDK. Without the SDK, they can't enable their app for APP policies. The developer must modify or recode the app to support APP policies.

    To help, Intune includes the App Wrapping Tool tool for existing Android apps (APKs), and creates an app that recognizes APP policies.

    For more information on this tool, see prepare line-of-business apps for app protection policies.

To see a list of apps enabled with APP, see managed apps with a rich set of mobile application protection policies.

Deployment scenarios

This section describes the important characteristics of the MAM and Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile deployment scenarios.

MAM

A MAM deployment defines policies on apps, not devices. For BYOD, MAM is often used on unenrolled devices. To protect apps and access to organizational data, administrators use APP-manageable apps, and apply data protection policies to these apps.

This feature applies to:

  • Android 4.4 and later

Tip

For more information, see What are app protection policies?.

Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles

Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles are the core Android Enterprise deployment scenario. The Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile is a separate partition created at the Android OS level that can be managed by Intune.

An Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile includes the following features:

  • Traditional MDM functionality: Key MDM capabilities, such as app lifecycle management using managed Google Play, is available in any Android Enterprise scenario. Managed Google Play provides a robust experience to install and update apps without any user intervention. IT can also push app configuration settings to organizational apps. It also doesn't require end users to allow installations from unknown sources. Other common MDM activities, such as deploying certificates, configuring WiFi/VPNs, and setting device passcodes are available with Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles.

  • DLP on the Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile boundary: With an Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile, DLP policies are enforced at the work profile level, not the app level. For example, copy/paste protection is enforced by the APP settings applied to an app, or enforced by the work profile. When the app is deployed into a work profile, administrators can pause copy/paste protection to the work profile by turning off this policy at the APP level.

Tips to optimize the work profile experience

You should consider how to use APP and multi-identity when working with Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles.

When to use APP within Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles

Intune APP and Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles are complementary technologies that can be used together or separately. Architecturally, both solutions enforce policies at different layers – APP at the individual app layer, and work profile at the profile layer. Deploying apps managed with an APP policy to an app in a work profile is a valid and supported scenario. To use APP, work profiles, or a combination depends on your DLP requirements.

Android Enterprise personally-owned Work profiles and APP complement each other's settings by providing additional coverage if one profile doesn't meet your organization's data protection requirements. For example, work profiles don't natively provide controls to restrict an app from saving to an untrusted cloud storage location. APP includes this feature. You may decide that DLP provided solely by the work profile is sufficient, and choose not to use APP. Or, you can require the protections from a combination of the two.

Suppress APP policy for Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles

You may need to support individual users who have multiple devices - unenrolled devices with MAM managed applications and managed devices with Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles.

For example, you require end users to enter a PIN when opening a work app. Depending on the device, the PIN features are handled by APP or by the work profile. For MAM managed applications, access controls including the PIN-to-launch behavior are enforced by APP. For enrolled devices, the APP PIN may be disabled to avoid requiring both a device PIN and an APP PIN. (APP PIN setting for Android. For work profile devices, you can use a device or work profile PIN enforced by the OS. To accomplish this scenario, configure APP settings so that they don't apply when an app is deployed into a work profile. If you don't configure it this way, the end user gets prompted for a PIN by the device, and again at the APP layer.

Control multi-identity behavior in Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles

Office applications, such as Outlook and OneDrive, have "multi-identity" behavior. Within one instance of the application, the end user can add connections to multiple distinct accounts or cloud storage locations. Within the application, the data retrieved from these locations can be separate or merged. And, the user is able to context switch between personal identities (user@outlook.com) and organization identities (user@contoso.com).

When using Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles, you may want to disable this multi-identity behavior. When you disable it, badged instances of the app in the work profile can only be configured with an organization identity. Use the Allowed Accounts app configuration setting for supporting Office Android apps.

For more information, see deploy Outlook for iOS/iPadOS and Android app configuration settings.

When to use Intune APP

There are several enterprise mobility scenarios where using Intune APP is the best recommendation.

No MDM, no enrollment, Google services are unavailable

Some customers don't want any form of device management, including Android Enterprise personally-owned work profile management, for different reasons:

  • Legal and liability reasons
  • For consistency of user experience
  • The Android device environment is highly heterogeneous
  • There isn't any connectivity to Google services, which is required for work profile management.

For example, customers in or have users in China can't use Android device management since Google services are blocked. In this case, use Intune APP for DLP.

Summary

Using Intune, both MAM and Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles are available for your Android BYOD program. You can choose to use MAM and/or work profiles depending upon your business and usage requirements. In summary, use Android Enterprise personally-owned work profiles if you need MDM activities on managed devices, such as certificate deployment, app push, and so on. Use MAM if you want to protect org data within applications.

Next steps

Start using app protection policies, or enroll your devices.