Before installing Application Manager, you'll need to set up distribution point groups, collections and the application root folder in your Configuration Manager environment.
Distribution Point Groups
- Application Manager targets application content to distribution point groups. You need to have at least one distribution point group created in Configuration Manager before installing Application Manager. You might want to include all distribution points to your distribution point group, but in larger environments it's possible to include only distribution points used for application media distribution. You can use existing distribution point groups in Application Manager.
- Distribution point groups are created from Configuration Manager console on Administration > Distribution Point Groups view. Select Create Group to create a new distribution point group.
- Specify a name for the distribution point group and then select required distribution points where content should be distributed by Configuration Manager when new applications are created by AM.
Collections
- Device and user collections are used as a deployment target in AM's deployment processes. You can configure as many target collections in AM as you want, but the most common way is to have just a pilot and production collections. You can create collections from Configuration Manager console in Assets and Compliance > Device Collections or User collections view.
- If you are using AM to deploy all your selected applications to all of your devices, you only need two collections (pilot & production).
- In some cases you might want to deploy AM created application only to devices containing a previous version of the application. In that case you would create application specific collections in configuration manager and deployment processes in AM, and select application specific collections to the deployment process.
- You can configure application specific query to a collection by adding Query rule to a collection -> Edit Query Statement -> Criteria
- Add new criteria and select Installed Software > Product Name. Add the application name to Value field with percentage symbols around it (%APPLICATION%).
- You can also user our example queries as listed below. You can add WQL query by selecting Show Query Language in Query Statement Properties window.
Example queries for application specific collections:
Mozilla Firefox
select * from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE on SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ProductName = "%Firefox%"
Google Chrome
select * from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE on SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ProductName = "%Google Chrome%"Adobe Reader DC
select * from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE on SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ResourceId = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_INSTALLED_SOFTWARE.ProductName = "%Adobe Acrobat Reader DC%"Application root folder
- AM will create a folder structure to Configuration Manager in Software Library > Application Management > Applications. You can specify the root folder name that will be created under Applications. All applications added by AM will be created under this root folder with a following structure: Publisher > Application name.
- By default, the root folder is Application Manager, but you can change this in deployment process settings.