Use Configuration Profiles on macOS Devices

Operating System: macOS

Required Permissions: IT Admin

In order for the empower^® Sync to function as intended on any system, a RemoteServiceConfig.xml file is provided.

In companies where device management software is in use (share/deploy software on more than one device), the administrator needs to share the file RemoteServiceConfig.xml to each and every device, prior to the installation of empower^®.

This file should always be shared to the following location:

/Users/[USER NAME]/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/empower/

We at empower decided to develop an additional way, in order to provide this file to the clients – using configuration profiles. Based on these configuration profiles and with setting the right variables, the administrator can share those profiles onto every device.

By doing this, the step where one should first copy the file RemoteServiceConfig.xml to the required location is obsolete. By installing a configuration profile and then starting empower^®, a new RemoteServiceConfig.xml is created.

Apple Configuration Profiles

Apple's configuration profiles streamline the Mac computer, iPad and iPhone configuration process. You can use Apple's configuration profiles to securely and remotely deploy settings directly from the dashboard to ADM (Apple Device Management) enrolled devices.

Configuration profiles have a .mobileconfig extension and are XML files containing payloads. Payloads manage specific settings on Apple devices. A configuration profile can contain more than one payload and an Apple device can have more than one configuration profile.

Important

Apple configuration profiles are not supported on devices using macOS 10.12 or earlier.

Apple configuration profiles cannot push to those devices.

RemoteServiceConfig.xml

The following excerpt provides an example of how the content of the file RemoteServiceConfig.xml looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ServerConfiguration xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                     xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <ActiveServerEndpoint>[ACTIVE SERVER ENDPOINT]</ActiveServerEndpoint>
    <ServerBaseUrl>[BASE URL]</ServerBaseUrl>
    <ServerEndpoint>
        <ServerName>[SERVER NAME]</ServerName>
        <ServerRoute>[SERVER ROUTE]</ServerRoute>
        <DisableAutoDiscovery>true</DisableAutoDiscovery>
    </ServerEndpoint>
</ServerConfiguration>

The values in this file are required to set up a respective configuration profile.

Fill in Configuration Profile

While creating a new configuration profile, the following variables should be taken into account:
ServerBaseUrl [REQUIRED] – Adequate to `ServerBaseUrl` in RemoteServiceConfig.xml ServerRoute [NOT REQUIRED] – Adequate to `ServerRoute` in RemoteServiceConfig.xml Default Value: empower EnableAutoDiscovery [NOT REQUIRED] – Adequate to `DisableAutoDiscovery` in RemoteServiceConfig.xml Default Value: true

Note

For further information regarding the installation of configuration profiles, see Use configuration profiles to standardize settings on Mac computers.

Configuration Profiles with empower^®

On every startup of empower^®, the following logic is executed: