Adding Third Party Apps to Dock

m_higgins
Contributor

I know there are several threads on this but is there a definitive answer?

We used to use Workgroup Manager which was perfect for this but with Configuration Profiles it seems to be so difficult!

I have been using the trick of editing ConfigurationProfileDockItemApps.xml which has been working really well, until the last update of the JSS and now it doesn't seem to work

Any help would be great

5 REPLIES 5

davidacland
Honored Contributor II
Honored Contributor II

The approach would depend a little on the scenario, specifically whether you would want the dock to be editable afterwards.

In school setups where we want the dock to be fixed, we normally upload a com.apple.dock.plist file into the custom settings of a configuration profile and scope to devices.

For more sophisticated setups we use dockutil.

nkalister
Valued Contributor

Like David mentioned, definitely take a look at dockutil. You'd need to deploy the dockutil file to your machines, but that's simple to do and dockutil is very powerful.

calumhunter
Valued Contributor

100% dockutil is the right tool for the job

but config profiles also work

check out Michael Page's site for a tool that creates a profile you can use http://errorfreeit.com.au/blog/2015/4/28/dock-master

bentoms
Release Candidate Programs Tester

@m.higgins If you're forcing a dock, I second @calumhunter's suggestion.

Otherwise: dockutil.

I've an example of how I use it to add one app, here.

You can then expand that for you use case.

m_higgins
Contributor

Ok much appreciated for the response. What about adding third party apps to the allowed apps list drop down?

Any ideas on this?

We have accounts that should only be able to open Word for example, but it is not in the drop down list