App Installers (Available) and Pre-existing Installs

[McAwesome]

Following this weekend's update, I decided to start testing out the "Available in Self Service" option for App Installers.  This works great for machines that do not have the application installed already.  The problem is that App Installers that are set to Available in Self Service do not adopt previous installations of those applications unless the user goes to Self Service and re-installs the application using the App Installer route.

Has anyone found a good method to get apps previously deployed by policies transferred to App Installers (Available) without forcing the end users to go into Self Service and re-install the program?

[Tribruin · Accepted solution]

Create a Smart Group "Application Title is <<name of application>>" and assign that to an Install Automatically App Installer. So any computer with the application installed will be added to the smart group and App Installers will take over the update process. This is what we use. 

See this thread and the last response from Jamf on best way to use both Self Service and Automatic Install:

https://community.jamf.com/t5/jamf-pro/app-installers-distribution-method-missing/m-p/294009#M260978

[JRodgers17]

I am having the same issue, I also get an error message when trying to "Open" the app via the Self Service item. The app I am trying to open was not previously installed via App Installers. 

 

[donmontalvo]

App Adoption seems to work for us, even with Xcode, provided for example the /Applications/Xcode.app is the path.

[McAwesome]

Just to clarify, this is about Jamf's App Installers, not VPP apps.  XCode is not available through App Installers, so I don't think it quite applies to this.

[donmontalvo]

Right, but I mentioned adoption since if you have Xcode.app in VPP, it will take over /Applications/Xcode.app.

[McAwesome]

Right, but it isn't relevant information and just muddies the waters for people looking for things on topic.

[Tribruin · Accepted solution]

Create a Smart Group "Application Title is <<name of application>>" and assign that to an Install Automatically App Installer. So any computer with the application installed will be added to the smart group and App Installers will take over the update process. This is what we use. 

See this thread and the last response from Jamf on best way to use both Self Service and Automatic Install:

https://community.jamf.com/t5/jamf-pro/app-installers-distribution-method-missing/m-p/294009#M260978

[jamf-42]

reading the jamf post, that means to use self service and install automatically we have to duplicate everything.. I would question why if a user has installed application 'foo' from Self Service they would not want it updated.. 

[Tribruin]

The way I read Justin's post is:

If you install an app by App-Installers Self Service option, it will continue to be updated as new versions are released. 

If you want to update computers that already have the app installed (or the user installs the app outside of the Self Service version) then, yes, you will need a 2nd copy of the App Installer.  

Not ideal, but I think it is doable. We already had a bunch of App Installers setup to update existing installs. I am going to test using a second app-installer for Self Service as well. 

[jamf-42]

its far from ideal..  two lots to manage, two lots to track.. 25 Mac apps becomes 50! (and they don't show on the dashboard.. so you have to check each one it turn.. ) 

[JustinC]

@jamf-42 it isn't an ideal solution and we will look to improve this functionality in a future update. Whilst the current workaround does require you to create two deployments per software title (if you want to publish via Self Service), this will ensure that the app is being patched regardless of how it was installed onto the computer. Whilst this does require a little more set-up in App Installers initially, my hope is that the fact that App Installers is automatically pushing out the updates to your computers from that point on that you will recoup the additional time investment in the initial setup. We will continue to refine the feature and I hope that this dual App Installers deployment workaround can be removed in the future.

[jamf-42]

thanks for the update.. can we get a clone button? .. then my life will be complete! (maybe) 😎

[McAwesome]

I wonder if a different, albeit slower, route would be to just have the listing scoped to machines with the title already installed and later on convert it to Available in Self Service.  Over time, most of your machines will get the update through that Required listing, which means they'll be able to be updated by that same listing once you swap it to Available.

[homepup]

I'm having a similar issue now with one of the Jamf app catalog items (Zoom in this case) where the deploy works fine but I have a 2nd setup for just making it show in Self Service and get this error:
App Installer deployment status

Unavailable:
 All 2422 computers in this smart group are unqualified for this App Installer.
Surprising that it states the computers aren't qualified since it's literally a clone of the same Jamf App catalog deploy with the same group selected and that one works fine. We have this same setup for dozens of other apps and this is the only one giving issues (not counting older apps that are Intel only, seems Jamf App catalog refuses to push an X64 app to a Silicon Mac).

[McAwesome]

It's because it's the same group that you're getting that message.  If it's in the scope of a Required install, it's Unqualified for the Available one.

[JustinC · Accepted solution]

@McAwesome just wanted to ensure that you had seen the recent change that we released with Jamf Pro 11.4.

From the release notes:

• When you create an App Installers deployment and choose to make the app available in Self Service, Jamf Pro can automatically detect if a computer in the target group previously had the app installed using another method (e.g., a policy, patch policy, or manually by the end user). With this improvement, you no longer need to create multiple smart groups and deployments to automatically update the app on those computers.