1

Hi All,

I’m just about to introduce a new BYOD policy into the company where I work and I was wondering how you manage user expectations.

I’m mainly concerned about mobile phones. If one of my user’s has configured their own mobile phone to receive work emails, I want the ability to remote wipe that device if they lose it, leave the company etc.

Do you just tell people that a remote wipe will destroy everything on the phone, all their music. pictures etc. or have you configured your remote tool only to wipe the corporate data, if so what software do you use to just wipe that part of the phone.

Do I need to ensure that the entire phone is encrypted or just the partition that holds the corporate email. As we have Office365, they are allowed to install mobile office on their phones also. What about any attachments they may have downloaded and worked on / replied to via email.

Can this automatically be wiped x hours after it has been downloaded or sent via email.

Thanks as always

10 Spice ups
2

There is a thin line between BYOD vs SPWF (smart phone work force) as it boils down to both Organisation Policies and HR policies.

  • who pays for the user’s mobile phones ?

  • is the user expected to login to the mobile phone as a corporate user or personal (like using corporate apple account or email accounts for Android)

3

We are just about to implement our own BYOD policy. Also we will be managing the company deployed mobiles under the same blanket Device Management solution.

You say you have Office 365, then the MDM solution that they offer can be configured to implement the options you wish. There is the ‘free’ office 365 solution which will require device enrolment via the InTune app. Or you can further enhance this with an Azure premium subscription.

The free solution enables you to only remove the company data as well as reset the device back to factory defaults.

These should get you on the right track.

Capabilities of built-in Mobile Device Management for Office 365

Set up Mobile Device Management (MDM) in Office 365

4

For BYOD we have just moved away from Oracle to Blackberry (yes, those guys) and it has been awesome. Only corporate content is managed and its all through secure containers

5

We warn people that when we send a remote wipe everything goes BYE BYE so if they want to use their own device it is at their own risk. Now some have made the work account separate so that it only wipes that piece but others just accept it.

6

I don’t understand why anyone would buy a phone then hand their company the keys…

7

Hello!

With the advent of stricter corporate security, being able to wipe remote devices if something happens is SOP now-a-days. And when I say ‘wipe’, I mean wipe corporate data (emails and any other apps that contain sensitive material).

The VAST majority of organizations I work with employ this policy and employees just have to accept it if they are going to have work emails on their phone.

What has helped is getting buy-in from the top brass FIRST. Explain the necessity for these security practices and once you have that buy-in, the rest of the organization should follow without much of an issue.

Hope this helped and thanks!

8

Work out the details in policy, then do what you need to do to have that adopted, then work on implementation. You don’t want to have your implementation stalled by questions and debate.

We have not allowed BYOD, but will soon deploy and MDM solution that offers features that will allow us to do so in a compliant/controlled manner.

9

Hey Chris,

Managing BYOD devices is definitely no longer complex, if you do have right policies in place. Allow me to introduce ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus , a MDM solution from Zoho Corporation. This MDM solution can help you with,

  1. Remote wiping corporate data in your managed BYOD device

  2. Secure the email communications and attachments , if its with the managed email app.

  3. Guess what you can also located these devices, using GPS if they are lost.

If you are looking to manage more than mobiles, including servers, desktops and laptops you can also take a look ManageEngine Desktop Central which comes as a UEM offering. You can also DM me, for personal assistance regarding your query.

@chrishone