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Managing content? Load up your Backpack!

Backpack, a new feature in Systems Manager, lets you manage and push content to devices. Here’s how to get started.

Last week, we released a new Systems Manager feature called Backpack. Organizations that manage mobile devices not only need to enforce security, deploy network settings, and track inventory — they also need to manage content on those devices.

Backpack lets you push content to your mobile devices and keep it up to date. Content can include PDF files, Office docs, images, or text-based files. Configuration in Systems Manager is quite straightforward:

  1. Select a name for the file — this will be used as the description
  2. Enter the URL where the file is hosted. This should be accessible to your devices (if you’re using an app like Dropbox, be sure to share the content and use that URL).
  3. Let Systems Manager automatically detect the file type, or you can optionally specify it.
  4. Optionally, let Systems Manager keep the content up to date on the device

Once you’re done, you’ll have something like this:

Backpack configuration in Systems Manager

That’s it! If your managed devices are online, they’ll receive the content shortly after you click the save button. If not, they’ll receive the content after they come back online. The content will appear in the device’s Backpack, in the Systems Manager app. Here’s a look at Backpack on a Nexus 7.

Backpack content on Nexus 7

Note: Backpack is available now for Android devices. iOS support is coming.