On a recent project we were implementing Android Zero Touch for out of the box enrollment through WS1 UEM. For a detailed explanation what Android Zero Touch is take a look at the following URL: Zero-touch enrollment for IT admins – Android Enterprise Help
When the Zero Touch Portal is enabled through the reseller and you have your access the DPC part of UEM or any other supported EMM vendor can be added and assigned. For WS1 UEM we have the following options for configuration: Enroll Android Device Using Zero Touch Portal
Now comes the part that was the “issue” or better said somewhat misinterpreted throughout the documentation. When you configured the setup through above steps you will always get a prompt after the DPC part through VMware Access that you need to login, but the whole purpose is that there is an auto-enrollment throughout Android Zero Touch and it’s DPC values through WS1 UEM and Access. Well the latter is the blocking part.
If the authentication of WS1 UEM / WS1 Access is configured to use the source of authentication from HUB services as WS1 Access you will break the staging user part from Androids perspective. Apple for example does not have this issue when using DEP/VPP because the staging works different through that program integration with WS1 UEM.
Flipping the authentication over to UEM as primarily source and everything is working nicely. But we don’t want this because Access should be the source of authentication regarding every nicely integration for web applications throughout SAML, other IDP providers etc. etc.
Logged a support case for this but didn’t get any satisfying results regarding the enrollment process. I’ll get back to this because support did help me after we got that one fixed with something else.
Just by luck an internal colleague has a nifty RSS feed active for useful blogs and this one popped up and immediate had my interest: Automated no credential enrollment when using Workspace ONE Access for source of Authentication
OK! That explains a lot after reading and there is another VMware URL regarding extra DPC values for UEM specific items: Additional Supported Enrollment Flags for Android Enrollment and the simple addition of “useUEMAuthentication” did the trick. This effectively disables Access for the enrollment part and allows the use of a staging user again.
Well staging works and… bummer the HUB screen keeps refreshing and we can’t sign in as the owner of the device. And here we come back to VMware support, after some testing I flipped over the staging user account in UEM from “Standard – Users are asked to log in after staging” to “Advanced – Enroll on behalf of another user” and the latter gives the experience that you assign the user after staging and then login and presto no more spinning HUB screen and it works.
After discussing this with support it’s the way that how Zero Touch enrollment works the staging user account needs to be set to advanced, the standard mode isn’t supported in this way of enrolling. And after that case closed!
Hope it helps!