Discussion: Should dual MAM management be a thing in the future?

[Noel Fairclough]

Hi everyone, I wanted to put something out there for consideration that may be a scenario that we'll start to encounter more and more.

I was asked by a customer to test a scenario where someone brings a device to their organisation that is already managed by MAM policies. My customer also requires MAM policies if you add their Office apps to your mobile device. They wanted to see what happens.

As I found out - it is not possible. However, as BYOD/MAM and mobile device enrolment becomes more widespread, this will likely be a scenario we see more often. In this particular case, say I am employed by Company A, but I perform work on engagements with Company B, Company C etc. Company A requires MAM policies, but when I go to Company B/C, they set me up with a mailbox (so I can get email), and I wish to add that to my phone - but they also require MAM policies. As you can see this scenario is fairly common amongst consultants, but is not technically possible.

My point to this post is just to put it out there and see what your thoughts are (if you see this becoming more common) and if you see any technical workarounds for this. Maybe making the MAM policies context specific, instead of application specific (quite a challenge I know).

 

[#2]

Hi,

I see the same issue at many customers, consultants, vendors that want to use their own phone but cannot as it is already managed by another organisation. So yes it would be awesome but I can see the challenges...

Regards,

Jörgen

[#3]

Hi,

agree that would be a great addition. Especially when you as a contractor, consultant etc. is working for different companies. Having Outlook mobile for example with 4 email accounts where one is private, one is from your own company and two separate ones for customers and all are protected by them self with app protection policies would be really really great!

best,

Oliver

[#4]

It would be really awesome, but I understand it is quite a challenge...

[#5]

Hi all, so for anybody following this - I actually worked out how to do this.  Please note that none of what I say is an "official" way of doing it (which is to say it probably is not a supported method) - BUT...

On a Samsung phone, you can create a "Secure Folder".  On Huawei it is called "Private Spaces".  I am not sure this capability exists on other Android phones (LG, Google Pixel, Sony etc).

On my Samsung - once I manually created a Secure Folder (basically - I setup a "work profile"), I was able to add another instance of Outlook inside there.  In that instance, I was able to sign in with another identity that also had MAM policies applied.  Thus, allowing me to have 2 instances of Outlook on the same phone, connected to different tenancies with different MAM policies.

The Outlook instance inside the Secure Folder and the one outside the Secure Folder don't know about each other, and don't interfere with one another.

So for now - this is a work around if you find yourself in a situation where you need live with MAM policies from differing organisations.