Jamf App Catalog

[pueo]

Hello All

Playing around with the Jamf App Catalog feature.  Wondering when an app updates if the users is booted out of the App or does the install cache install or ?

I have auto updates installed on many of the listed apps, so trying to test can be challenging.

P.

[RLR]

On IOS, if the user is using the app that requires an update, a message will pop up saying jamf is trying to update the app and gives them the option to close the app. If the app isn't being used it will just update.

[pueo]

Thank you RLR.

Do you know if the same works for macOS?

[RLR]

Sorry, I'm not sure how it works on macOS. We're pretty much an iPad shop.

[CSCC-JS]

* Very Limited * testing - I had the app open (forget which) but out of date.

It killed the app without any prompts and upgraded it.

[JustinC]

@CSCC-JS it would be great if you could share which app that happened with. That shouldn't have been the behaviour.

[pueo]

This is what we do not want in our organization.  I am currently testing MS Visual Studio Code.  Its been two weeks now and two updates. No one has messaged me about being shut out of app while using it.  I do understand MS Visual Studio Code does not update unless you relaunch anyways, so the patching is following suit.

[vcherubino]

I just saw this on the Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint, and Word App Installer. It kicks you out of the apps with no warning.

[JustinC]

@vcherubino thank you for that information. We will investigate as to why that is occurring.

[pueo]

Did you see this behaviour with OneDrive?  I am using a profile to manage all  O365 apps I can via a profile. It works pretty good for the suite but I find Onedrive is always behind. I would like to try the App Catalog and see if OneDrive updates quicker.

[JustinC · Accepted solution]

@pueo the installers cache and then attempt to install once they are fully downloaded. The expected behaviour of what happens if the app is running to this point has been dependent on how the installer was constructed by the original software vendor. We were trying to use the original vendor packages as much as possible and were only repackaging if the original installers were either not available in a .pkg format and/or were not available as a universal installer. I provide a little more information about this here https://www.jamf.com/blog/jamf-app-installers-faq/

Unfortunately many vendor installer packages have some 'quirks' when they are deployed via the InstallEnterpriseApplication MDM command versus standard GUI or CLI methods. This will require us to repackage more titles than originally estimated to address these issues though this should provide a more consistent user experience.

[pueo]

Very helpful. Thank you. 

[vcherubino]

Chromium based apps and Microsoft Apps have the most notable issues in our tenant. Chrome crashes new tabs when the App Installer updates the user while Chrome is open (which is almost always).
Strange behavior happens with Defender as well and most apps that use MS Autoupdate. It gets stuck "installing" for hours on some machines and warns them that they shouldn't reboot while it is installing, then never does, leaving the machine without AV unless we manually push it again.

[pueo]

Yous experience sounds kinda terrible.  Thanks for warning me of the potential experience with Chrome and MS products.
We have Chrome set to auto update so we will leave it as is.  MS products we have a Profile installed which handles all the updates in the back end.  All users do is re launch an app if they are using it. Otherwise the MS app will update itself if not being used. Since I pushed out the MS profile it really has made a difference in keeping our MS products updated.
Thank you kindly.

[jpoirson]

Hello,

When will the feature for just making the app available in Self-Service be out ?

I only have the option to mass deploy enforced as of now

Best regards

[KatMaerz517]

I'm not understanding how this works. I still have to package the original app?

[JustinC]

@KatMaerz517 no. App Installers will install the software title onto any machine within the deployment scope that does not already have it installed. It will then keep the software title updated for any machine in the scope.

[FutureFacinLuke]

Hi,

I'm having some problems with this, I have a set of apps deployed to a smart group (Lab Apps) and another set of Apps scoped to All Managed Clients.

All of the Apps scoped to All Managed Clients are automatically installing, the Apps scoped to the Labs Smart Group I had to go into each one, disable Deploy, Save, enable Deploy to get the newly built Macs (that had already dropped into the scoped group) to install the apps or appear in Deployment Status for the App. Is there a better way to do this? 

[cwaldrip]

I second Self Service availability. I have uses on very restricted bandwidth so letting them initiate the download/install is much preferred than taking up their default expensive and limited bandwidth.

[Éric]

Hi there, I've tested Microsoft Teams again and the behaviour hasn't change. The application quits without any warning to do the update. 

[MacMaul]

Just tested Teams as well and it still will quit the app without warning.

[SMR1]

What's the time frame for the package to install once you change it to deploy?

[JustinC]

@SMR1 it depends. We cover the process that App Installers goes through in the documentation page here https://docs.jamf.com/10.42.0/jamf-pro/documentation/App_Installers.html

Basically, depending on what stage of the Smart Group recalculation cycle App Installers is up to, the InstallEnterpriseApplication MDM command could be sent almost instantly or it could take 20-ish minutes. The end user computer then needs to receive the command and download the installer. Depending on how large the package is will also affect the time taken to actually install the application.

[burdett]

Does JAMF App include in it's deployment the needed configuration profiles?   Example if a app needed a PPPC to allow access to all files  and/or  needed a Managed Login Items.

If I have a App that is currently deployed, patched and has configuration profiles to support the app do I need to remove the app and/or the related configuration profiles before scoping a device to the JAMF app?