Windows App Management - App Profiles

WINDOWS APP PROFILES

Settings such as connect time, Screensaver options, Active Directory integration, etc., for the Windows App are controlled by the Windows App Profile. The first time the App is downloaded it will include the Default App Profile and will apply those settings. If the recipient whose desktop the App is being installed on is part of the targeting group of another profile with a higher priority, the correct profile will be downloaded and applied as soon as the App connects to the SnapComms server.

The App Management >> Windows App Profiles screen enables the creation and customization of the Profile used to configure the SnapComms Windows App when installing on Windows-based users' machines.

The Windows App Profiles screen shows all App Profiles created, their priority, status, the date they were published, the Administrator who published the Profile and a Success Report button for published profiles.

Name: This is the name of the profile and helps identify which profile is applied to an App (for troubleshooting). This name is shown in the Desktop App by hovering over the SnapComms logo on the bottom right.

Priority: The Priority of the Profile controls the order in which they are applied. Where multiple profiles are published, any end user who has been targeted in more than one Profile will have the one with the highest priority applied.

Status: This is the current publishing status of the profile. Options are: Draft, Published, Disabled. Draft indicates that the profile has yet to be published. A disabled profile will show in the list but will not be applied to any users.

Last Published: The date the profile was published on.

 Click and drag to reorder the profile;

 Click to go to the Success Report page of the profile;

 Click to edit the Profile settings;

 Click to access the action menu: Clone (make a copy of the profile with a new name), Disable, Delete or Publish the profile.

WINDOWS APP PROFILE SETTINGS

To customize a Profile for your organization go to the Management >> Windows App Profiles screen. Settings are grouped into:

• Basic Settings

• Advanced Settings (appears when the Show Advanced Settings button, found on the lower left side of the screen, is clicked)

Prerequisite

To access the App Profile screens, an Administrator must have access to both the Management section and Windows App Profiles. These settings are controlled in the Administrator properties screen.

Basic Settings

App Connect Time

Connect time in seconds: Time in seconds of how often the App connects (polls) to the server when the Real-Time Notification mechanism is not considered. This setting control is only considered when the targeted audience is greater than 30K+ users. The default setting is 600 seconds and is configurable. 

Learn more about Real Time Notifications

Enable live statistics update: If enabled, any interaction between the recipient and the published message (e.g. reading an alert) will result in the App connecting to the server to report these statistics. If deselected, the statistics update is queued until the next scheduled poll time.

Enable statistics (licensed feature): If enabled under your license, this allows you to turn off statistics collection for the App with this Profile applied. This will result in all read statistics being turned off for the App and will impact all reporting. Statistics collection is enabled by default.
  

Screensaver

Enable Screensaver:  Enable or disable the SnapComms Screensaver. If this setting is enabled, all other Screensaver preferences (whether user set or centrally controlled) will be overwritten by the SnapComms Screensaver whenever the App is active. This means that if the user changes their Screensaver to anything other than the SnapComms Screensaver, it will be automatically changed back to the SnapComms Screensaver.

Allow external URL in Screensaver: This feature is disabled by default. Enabling this feature changes the security behavior of the Screensaver and allows external URLs to be accessed from the Screensaver.

Install to Windows Folder:  Enabling this option will result in the SnapComms SCR Screensaver file (SnapSCR.scr) being installed in C:\Windows. If disabled, the .scr file will be installed in the same folder as the App (C:\Program Files (x86)\SnapComms\App\{version}).

Allow SnapComms to enforce screensaver: Ensure this is selected for the correct operation of the SnapComms Screensaver. If you need to control the screensaver behaviour via a Group Policy or similar, this option should be de-selected.

Allow SnapComms to control timeout: Enable this setting to allow SnapComms to control the PC idle time (timeout setting below). If you require this setting to be controlled outside of the SnapComms product (e.g. via Group Policy), this option should be de-selected.

Timeout in minutes: This is the time period that the computer should be idle before the SnapComms Screensaver is activated. The default setting is 10 minutes but can be changed to anything up to 9,999 minutes.

Lock Screen

Windows defaults to blurring the sign-in screen when the Windows > Personalization > 'Transparency Effects' setting is enabled. 

Select the 'Disable Windows lock screen blurring' if the organization's preference is a clear sign-in screen without the blurring effect. This functionality requires the SnapComms Windows App version 24.5.562 or higher.

If 'Disable Windows lock screen blurring' is switched on from the App Profile but the Windows User's Transparency Effect setting is enabled, the App Profile settings take preference.

Accessibility

Accessibility Mode: Enable this setting to allow SnapComms Windows App to work correctly with various ScreenReaders. If disabled, then ScreenReaders will now work with the SnapComms Windows App.

The minimum SnapComms Windows App supporting accessibility is 21.01.12858.
It is recommended to use the latest Windows App version available.

https://support.snapcomms.com/hc/en-us/articles/19360957440539-Accessibility-Screen-Reader-Support
 

Advanced Settings

To access the Advanced settings, click Show Advanced Settings at the bottom of the App Profile page. 

Access Options

Enable settings link:  Enable or disable the Settings button on the Message History window displayed in the Desktop App. Disabling this will prevent access to the tabs accessible in the Settings window (Proxy Server settings and Diagnostics).

Enable Message History access: Turning off this setting will hide the SnapComms App from the Windows System Tray. This will prevent recipients from seeing if there are unread messages via the badge count, and from quickly accessing the Message History to see previously published messages. If this is disabled, the recipient can still open the Message History from the Start Menu. It is recommended that this option is always enabled unless there is a strong need for disabling (e.g. Screensavers or Wallpapers are the only licensed channels).
  

Error Handling

Show errors on App: If this setting is disabled, any errors occurring on the SnapComms App are logged, error messages are suppressed and a SnapComms App restart is initiated. Otherwise, an error dialog is displayed to the users and the SnapComms App is restarted.

Send error information to server: If this is enabled, crash log information is periodically uploaded to the SnapComms server.

Notification Suppression

SnapComms desktop apps have a built-in capability to recognize when there is a desktop application running on full screen or in presentation mode to suppress notifications except for emergency and urgent types of alerts. A maximized window is not recognized as presentation mode and will not trigger this built-in capability. The App offers support for suppressing notifications while sharing your screen during a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call on both Windows and Mac. By default, sharing your screen will suppress notifications for both Zoom and Microsoft Teams. On the Windows platform, sharing a single window in Zoom will also suppress notifications.

In the SnapComms Windows App Profile, enable "Suppression Options" to customize the suppression behavior for each process name. 

• Suppression Behavior options:
  Never suppress notifications because of this process
• Suppress notifications if the process window is full screen (even in background)
• Always suppress notifications if this process has a window open
• Only suppress notifications if the process window is full screen in the foreground

BGInfo Integration

Show BGInfo on Wallpaper: If this is enabled, BGInfo information is displayed on your Wallpapers.
BGInfo Command Line: Place the path to where BGInfo.exe resides on your computer, e.g. C:\Program Files\Bginfor.exe /timer:0
BGInfo Image Name: Place the path and file name of the file created by BGInfo.exe. e.g. %temp%\BGinfo.bmp

Active Directory Integration

Refresh time in seconds: Time between queries of Active Directory in seconds. The default value is 21600 (6 hours).

Refresh at startup: Specifies whether the SnapComms App initiates a refresh from Active Directory immediately at SnapComms App startup, rather than waiting for the next scheduled refresh time according to the Active Directory Refresh Time setting. Enabling this option may cause a higher load on Active Directory at user logon time due to the additional Active Directory queries that the SnapComms App will make when it is started.

Query timeout in seconds: Timeout for querying Active Directory in seconds. The minimum value is 10 and the default value is 120 (2 minutes).

Use secure connection: Enable if using LDAPS (Secure LDAP) Active Directory
 

Retry interval in seconds: The time between retries in querying Active Directory in seconds. The minimum value is 10 and the default value is 300 (5 minutes).
 

Additionally allowed domains: Enter a semicolon-delimited list of domain names that the SnapComms App is allowed to query (must be in standard domain name format e.g. domain.com). The user and machine domains are always implicitly allowed. 

Included user attributes: Controls what Active Directory attributes are collected, which then become available for Attribute Targeting. It displays a string containing a comma-separated list of attribute names to be included in the query of a User object in Active Directory. If this is an empty string, the default list of attribute names are used as follows:

objectGUID, cn, givenName, sn, displayName, description, userPrincipalName, sAMAccountName, memberOf, company, department, manager, title, c, l, co, st, postalCode, mobile

The following attributes are the recommended minimal set of attribute names to be included to ensure an acceptable minimum level of functionality from the SnapComms software:

objectGUID, cn, givenName, sn, displayName, sAMAccountName, userPrincipalName, memberOf

Click on the Ellipsis button to see the list of attributes and click to enable or disable the inclusion of specific attributes.

The following attributes (marked by an asterisk *) are mandatory for correct operation of the SnapComms software: 

objectGUID, cn, sAMAccountName, userPrincipalName

Note: If the memberOf attribute is not included in the list of attributes, the groups to which the user belongs will not be retrieved by the SnapComms App.

To select the minimal attributes click on the Select Minimal button.

Included machine attributes: Shows a string containing a comma-separated list of attribute names to be included in the query of a machine object in Active Directory.
If this is an empty string, the default list of attribute names are used as follows:

objectGUID, cn, location, machineRole, l, co, st, postalCode, givenName, sn, displayName, description, memberOf, mail, mobile, company, department, c

The following attributes are the recommended minimal set of attribute names to be included to ensure an acceptable minimum level of functionality from the SnapComms software:

objectGUID, cn, memberOf

Click on the Ellipsis button to see the list of attributes and click to enable or disable the inclusion of specific attributes.

The following attributes (marked by an asterisk *) are mandatory for correct operation of the SnapComms software.

objectGUID, cn

Note: If the memberOf attribute is not included in the list of attributes, the groups to which the machine belongs will not be retrieved by the SnapComms client/app.

To select the minimal attributes click on the Select Minimal button.

Included group attributes: Displays a string containing a comma-separated list of attribute names to be included in the query of an Active Directory group object. If this is an empty string, the default list of attribute names are used as follows:

objectGUID, cn, description, memberOf

The following attributes are the recommended minimal set of attribute names to be included to ensure an acceptable minimum level of functionality from the SnapComms software:

objectGUID, cn, memberOf

If the memberOf attribute is not included in the list of attributes, recursive group memberships (nested group memberships) will not be enumerated by the SnapComms App.
The following attributes are mandatory for correct operation of the SnapComms software 

objectGUID, cn

Group object filter: A string containing an ordered sequence of regular expressions to be used as inclusive and exclusive filter expressions to limit which Active Directory groups are queried. If this is an empty string (the default), no filter is applied. Please refer to this article regarding the correct syntax for entering the group filter: Windows App - Active Directory Group Filtering

Proxy Server Settings

Proxy configuration: Specifies if an HTTP proxy server should be used when connecting to the server. If a specific configuration is needed, this can be set in the App on the local users' machine (including a username/password if required).

Windows Session Launch Options

Launch SnapComms App into all sessions, even if a shell is not running: This option will cause the SnapComms system service to launch the SnapComms App into any running session on the client computer regardless of whether a shell executable process is detected. Warning: Enabling this on a server that hosts virtualized applications into their own session space will have the effect of launching the SnapComms App for that session as well as the intended published application. If this flag is set on a Citrix Server, for example, then the SnapComms App will be launched into any and all active sessions, essentially starting the SnapComms App even when only a single published application is accessed by a user.

Shell executable names: Specifies a comma-separated list of executable names that the SnapClientService will search for within running sessions to indicate that the session is an interactive user session. Enter the possible names of shell executable processes to be detected by the SnapComms system service as identifying active user sessions. Normally this is explorer.exe unless it has been re-configured on the client computer.

User & Machine Information Collection Method

User information method: This setting allows you to change the method that the SnapComms App identifies the current user. The default is to check for the currently logged in user (Active Directory). An alternative method is to find the information from a Registry setting, which is typically used in pooled Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments.

User method settings: This allows you to configure the user information collection method. For the default Active Directory method, this field is ignored and typically empty.
For the Registry option, this is a comma-delimited list specifying the registry string keys for the user "name" and the user "domain".

e.g. name=hkcu\Software\SnapUserName,domain=hkcu\Software\SnapUserDomain

hkcu should be used to specify the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive while hklm should be used to specify the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive.

Machine information method: This setting allows you to change the method that the SnapComms App identifies the current machine. The default is to check for the current Windows machine name using Active Directory. An alternative method is to find the information from a Registry setting, which is typically used in pooled Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments.

Machine method settings: This allows you to configure the machine information collection method. For the default Active Directory method, this field is ignored and typically empty.
For the Registry option, this is a comma-delimited list specifying the registry string keys for the machine "name" and the machine "domain".

e.g. name=HKCU\Software\SnapMachineName,domain=HKCU\Software\SnapMachineDomain

HKCU should be used to specify the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive while HKLM should be used to specify the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive.