XenMobile Server Current Release

Provisioning profile device policy

When you develop and code sign an iOS enterprise app, you usually include an enterprise distribution provisioning profile, which Apple requires for the app to run on an iOS device. If a provisioning profile is missing or has expired, the app crashes when a user taps to open it.

The primary problem with provisioning profiles is that they expire one year after they are generated on the Apple Developer Portal and you must keep track of the expiration dates for all your provisioning profiles on all iOS devices enrolled by your users. Tracking the expiration dates not only involves keeping track of the actual expiration dates, but also which users are using which version of the app. Two solutions are to email provisioning profiles to users or to put them on a web portal for download and installation. These solutions work, but they are prone to error because they require users to react to instructions in an email or to go to the web portal and download the correct profile and then install it.

To make this process transparent to users, in XenMobile you can install and remove provisioning profiles with device policies. Missing or expired profiles are removed as necessary and the up-to-date profiles are installed on users’ devices, so that tapping an app simply opens it for use.

Before you can create a provisioning profile policy, you must create a provisioning profile file. For more information, see the Apple article about how to create a development provisioning profile on the Apple Developer site.

iOS settings

Image of Device Policies configuration screen

  • iOS provisioning profile: Select the provisioning profile file to import by clicking Browse and then navigating to the file location.
Provisioning profile device policy