NitroDesk becomes part of Symantec

 

We have wonderful news to share!!  NitroDesk is now a part of Symantec, the global leader in security infrastructure and device management, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to share all of the wonderful assets Symantec has to offer. What does this mean to you, our wonderful customers?  Initially, the NitroDesk product experience will remain as it has been – we promise we’ll let you know once there is any product migration. Your NitroDesk support gurus are still here, and will continue to be available to you for any technical support questions you may have. TouchDown will remain a standalone app available through the app stores as it has been, with some Symantec rebranding. For Enterprise customers,Symantec will continue to offer TouchDown as part of the Symantec App Center Solution.

Why did Symantec acquire NitroDesk? Well, first, because we’re the best at what we do: protecting your mobile data. Since Symantec has assets in application management, device management, threat protection, data loss prevention and identity authentication, the NitroDesk piece fits in perfectly to Symantec’s workforce productivity offering. Think about all you’ll be able to do now that you have Symantec and NitroDesk on your side!

We are excited, and want you to be excited too. Please know it will be business as usual for a while, and watch our blog and Facebook page for updates – we’ll announce changes before they happen.  Feel free to follow us on Twitter @Nitrodesk and @SYMCMobility. For additional questions, you can see our acquisition FAQ at:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/sites/default/files/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20Public%205%2027%2014.pdf

Click below for Symantec’s Blog post:

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/symantec-advances-enterprise-mobile-offerings-acquisition-nitrodesk

Click below to view the press release:

 http://www.symantec.com/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=20140528_01

 

 

More Forms Functionality

Monday we invited our Support Guru Dragonfly to blog about TouchDown’s fabulous Forms Functionality.  Today we dive a bit deeper to give  you an in-depth view of how you can use Forms to get information out more efficiently:

Dragonfly here again, here to show off more with the Forms functionality. For a basic introduction to forms, check here. (Link to original post.) I would suggest reading that one first so you get a better understanding on the basics.

In today’s demo, I’m going to be showing how to attach items to a form. Say I run an entomology blog, and want to be able to have an easy way for my followers to send in their cool bug pictures to me with a little information on it, a TouchDown form would be a perfect solution for those users with TouchDown.

Planning the form out, I’d probably just want to use two screens, one for the information about the picture, and one for actually attaching the image. Let’s get started!

Creating a new Form

So, I start with creating the page for the picture info. I want to separate the user info and the bug info, so I add a section between the text boxes.

 

Creating the first screen

And here is the finished screen. The insect info field is a Section.

I add a button to go to the screen I am about to create.

Now, on the new screen, I add an image capture field.

Here’s where things get a little complicated. I need to set Attach to True, set the filename to image.jpg (As these pictures taken from smartphones are .jpgs) and that should set that up correctly. The importance of adding the Attach value to true means that the image will be attached to the email, so that is very important. Also, remember to add a Done button.

I move on to the Generated data screen and add the email body.

Here’s the finished body of the email.

You may think that you need to add an attachment on this screen as well, but you do not. By setting the image field Attach to True, this will cause it to attach without issue.

After that, I save and deploy the form.

Here’s how it appears on the device.

I constantly seem to get chess pieces confused with bugs.

And the output, complete with the picture.

Thanks for reading and hope this helps you as you generate more forms. If you have any questions, please let us know at support@nitrodesk.com!

Thanks,

-Dragonfly

 

 

Forms: A tutorial on one of TouchDown’s coolest features

Today’s tutorial is packed full of information, so grab a cup of coffee and settle in!  The Forms Feature in TouchDown is not the most used feature in TouchDown, but it has amazing functionality for those who need forms on the go.  Forms are a great way to communicate similar information across various occurrences: Imagine you are  an IT Tech headed to an onsite visit and need to communicate status, photos and conclusions to your boss in an email, or  that you are a  team member and have a daily meeting for which results need to be shared with your team via email.  Fire up Forms in TouchDown, create your  items to create in the forms (say, time of event, findings, photo, conclusion, next steps, etc), then send the result to your specified recipients  in a nicely formed email.  Super useful, right?  Here’s Dragonfly, our Tech Support Guru, to tell you how:

Hi,

Dragonfly here, and I’m going to talk about one of the less used, but still very cool features of TouchDown: Forms. The TouchDown form generator allows you to create your own forms that can easily be edited to include various fields, such as Date, text fields, checkboxes, etc, so an end user who imports a form can enter just a few values, and automatically generate an email that incorporates said values. Today, I’m going to demonstrate basic form creation and deployment in this tutorial. You can read more about TD forms here: https://nitrodesk.zendesk.com/entries/37112027-Mobile-Forms-Installation-User-s-Guide

To start, download the forms generator here: tinyurl.com/tdforms.

Another thing you may want to have is Outlook, so you can send the form out easily when it’s been created. But, it’s easy enough just to save it if you don’t haveOutlook.
First, download the file, and once you open it, choose ‘Design new form.’

This is the main Forms interface. The screens are as follows:

1. General: allows you to save and send the form
2. Screens: allows you to control the content of the screens
3. Generated data: allows you to control the outgoing email
4. Recipients: controls who gets the results of the form
5. XML View: to view the code.

 

Now, before I start building the form, I will need to plan out what I want to do with it. For this example, I decided to do something a little more whimsical- I’m going to create a character sheet for a generic tabletop Role playing game, but it should demonstrate some of the basic capabilities of forms that can be applied to just about anything.
First, I’m going to create my first screen. It’s going to show the character creation and date. To do this, I click ‘add screen’.
Now, you can see I’m on the name screen. To add functions to it, I drag and drop them into the main area, and then, using the menu on the right, add attributes so they make sense and aren’t just random fields.

Note the field on the side that is used to set attributes. This comes in very handy as it allows you to customize what the various fields do and look like.
Now I’m going to edit the field for the name text box. Nothing fancy here, just changing the general label and name from ‘Nameless’ to ’Name’ so the user knows to put the character name in there.
I add a label to the date field as well. Now that I’m done with that, I’m going to create a button that will go to the next page, which will be where I store the player stats. I click on the advanced field and hit the … button

Creating buttons to control the navigation of the form is essential, otherwise there will be no way to send, cancel, or go to other screens.

One that shows up, I create a new button. Since it’s going to the Stats page, I set the destination as Stats, and set the Label as ‘Next’.

Now, I create the stats page.

I add several text boxes for various numerical stat values, remembering to add names and labels, but I also add a drop down menu for the player class.

To do this, I drag the dropdown over, and assign it a label, then click on Misc to add a few character classes. Lastly, I click on a blank spot in the area to add a next button, like I did last time, to go to the ‘Inventory’ screen.

Adding a drop-down label

Drop down options for player classes

Now for the final screen, I’m going to include a checkbox to show that functionality. I add two text boxes for player’s inventory and skills, then ∫to determine if this is the person’s primary character. The checkbox serves to add a true/false after the selection, so it’s useful for Boolean situations.

The primary character button. Remember to add a correct ID/Label to every field.

Since I’ve decided that his is enough data to get a sense of what the character is, I create my done button. I click on an empty space in the screen, then pull up the navbutton editor.

Note that since this is the last screen, the “IsDone field” can be set to True.

Now that we have a list of fields and screens the user will interact with, I go to the Generated Data screen. I choose ‘Email Subject’ as the editable field, and enter ‘Character Sheet’ then switch to the body, and drag and drop the fields I would like to edit there. Since I don’t want to create a big block of text, I add a little HTML formatting.

Note the <p> and <br> to break it up.

Adding myself on the recipients tab.

On the recipient tab, I add myself, click save, and then go back to the General tab and Save, then hit Send.

I send it to myself, and it comes in as an attachment. After long pressing on it, I choose ‘Import Form,’ and TouchDown gives me the message that it is importing.

 

 

The email from Outlook

In the inbox, I hit menu>select form, and choose the form there.

Then, I go through the screens:

Changing his character class

 

And this is what the output looks like:

A completed character.

Eventually I plan on showing off more functionality with Forms, but this should help you get a better introductory understanding of how they work and what their abilities are. If you have any questions about forms, please let us know at support@nitrodesk.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Device Passcode or Corporate PIN?

There is a lot of debate these on what is better – a device passcode for your BYOD device or just a corporate Pin for the corporate data stored in a sandbox?  A lot of MDM solutions defend that your entire device needs a cop orate password, so that the device is safer from attacks.  I still feel that the whole point of BYOD is that you are bringing YOUR device, and as such, there should be a sharp delineation between personal and corporate data and USE.  It should be sufficient to protect that corporate data with a corporate password or PIN on your device, and in case the device is compromised, that part of the phone can be wiped without touching your personal data.  That being said, why would you NOT have a password on your device?  For me, the best of both world is having a personal device password that is unknown to anyone but me, and a Pin or Corporate password for the sandboxed data accessed on my phone.  Worth the hassle?  Definitely. What do yo have on YOUR device?

HeartBleed

News and concerns about the HeartBleed Virus are abuzz in the tech community right now. Here is what you need to know to protect yourself:

In terms of TouchDown users:

“TouchDown does not use OpenSSL for connections to the server (it may be used for other encryption purposes), and hence is not directly affected by HeartBleed.  However, if TouchDown runs on a platform that uses OpenSSL for communication, or connects to a server which is using OpenSSL for hosting connections, the users could be affected. Patches for the platform as well as servers should be obtained from the respective vendors”

We have knowledge of only one Android platform that is supposed to be affected, Android 4.1.1 (please see here for more information: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/google-services-updated-to-address.html )

If your clients are connecting directly to a Microsoft Exchange server, the is no vulnerability that we know of, since Exchange As far as we know does not employ OpenSSL.
If your clients connect through a non-microsoft gateway or email server, please contact the server vendor for patch information.

Mashable Has a great list of who was affected, what patches there are, etc:

“Some Internet companies that were vulnerable to the bug have already updated their servers with a security patch to fix the issue. This means you’ll need to go in and change your passwords immediately for these sites. Even that is no guarantee that your information wasn’t already compromised, but there’s also no indication that hackers knew about the exploit before this week. The companies that are advising customers to change their passwords are doing so as a precautionary measure.

Although changing your password regularly is always good practice, if a site or service hasn’t yet patched the problem, your information will still be vulnerable.

Also, if you reused the same password on multiple sites, and one of those sites was vulnerable, you’ll need to change the password everywhere. It’s not a good idea to use the same password across multiple sites, anyway.”

So far, obvious sites where password changes are recommended are : Instagram, Pinterest, Google, Yahoo, Gmail, Yahoo Mail,  Etsy, GoDaddy, DropBox, Github and Minecraft.  For more information, look at the Mashable list here  or check with the specific vendor.

Never sign in through Facebook or Twitter.  Create good passwords that are strong, and change them often.

 

 

When Mobile Device meets Home Network

In his recent Forbes article, Adam Levin made a good argument for the danger of BYOD, and what steps enterprises should employ if they do allow BYOD.  He points out that employees do utilize devices and computer at home, often on insecure networks and weak routers.  Levin emphasizes that enterprises should require and verify that  home networks use secure routers with up-to-date firmware, that home equipment should be just as secure as the network at work.  In general, a lot of solutions forget that its not only tablets and smartphones that enterprises need to worry about.  Laptops are mobile devices too, and if employees are using home computers and home networks, those should be secured as well.

I think the best overall approach to data security is education, containment, verification and respect.  I do agree that it is imperative that enterprises secure their data, the expense of not doing so far outweighs  the costs of security implementation.  While I do believe this should reach even into the employees home network, I think that educating the employees on how important this is and what the disastrous results could be if this is not followed is as critical as the implementation itself.  Furthermore, I think respecting the employees privacy is the number one way to ensure their commitment to protect this data.  Employees will be a lot more likely to follow through with the invasion of their own devices if the corporate data is in a separate container, and the personal part of the device is left alone.  With all the device and data management options out there, there is no excuse to have to wipe all the data off of an employees device; only the corporate data should be wiped.

So, to add to Levin’s points:

1. Have a corporate Data Policy which includes all technology used to access corporate data, whether this is a smartphone or an employees home network used to access corporate data.

2. Discuss above policy with employees to help them understand the importance of keeping corporate data safe, and outline how you will keep the employees data private.

3. Make it easy for employees to implement security software.

 

There are so many data management options out there – choose one that allows comprehensive control and allows employees the privacy and integrity of their own data if the device would need to be wiped.

S/MIME ANd TouchDown for MAC

Hi everyone and welcome to Spring!  Today we have the last installment of our S/MIME series – today Dragonfly is going to talk about Mac.

 

Dragonfly from Nitrodesk support here. In this tutorial, I’m going to be showing how to import certificates for S/MIME in Touchdown for Mac, and how to send signed and encrypted messages. For this tutorial, make sure you have a valid certificate ready- if you’re not sure how to get one, contact your IT team. In this demo, I have my certificate already on my hard drive. (If you’re curious about more information on how S/MIME works, read the first blog post here: http://blog.nitrodesk.com/2014/02/21/securing-your-email-with-smime/)

Note: Also, one major pitfall is to be aware of what profile’s settings you are entering- as you can see in the below screenshot, I have four profiles in this Touchdown installation, so it’s important that I note which one I’m on. If you are trying to set up a certificate for one profile, but are in another profile’s settings, it obviously won’t work.

For the first step, you’re going to need to import your certificate into Touchdown.
Go into settings, and under email settings>Certificates.

The certificates screen:

Click import

The import certificate screen:

Adding a certificate from the desktop- I just happened to save mine here:

Once you find it, hit Open.

Entering the certificate password and choosing what it will be used for. In this case, I want to use it for signing and encryption:

Once done, hit ‘Import.’

Once you do that, you should see the certificate on the list of Certificates on the Settings>email settings>Certificates. Now, let’s send an encrypted email to the welovenitrodesk account. Before we do that, they will need our public key, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume they already have that. (I sent them a signed message earlier, and they validated, so they have it.) I’ll also need their public key as well. To get their public key, I have welovenitrodesk send me a signed message.

Welovenitrodesk’s signed message:

In this message, you can see the little signing icon meaning they’ve sent me a signed message, so I go and click on the little sign symbol. After clicking validate, and it shows up as valid, I click Import, and it gives me the message that it has been validated:

 

 

I want to make sure it’s still valid, so I click ‘validate’ then once it shows up as validated, I click import. Now that I have welovenitrodesk’s public key, I can send them encrypted mail once they have my public key.

Sending an encrypted and signed message to welovenitrodesk:

On the email compose screen, I hit the lock icon, and check the options to sign and encrypt the message, hit Ok, and send it out.

Back in Touchdown for iOS, I get the encrypted email:

Hope this has been a helpful tutorial in using Touchdown for Mac’s S/MIME functionality. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch with us at macsupport@nitrodesk.com. Thanks for reading!

-Dragonfly

SmartWatch Integration with TouchDown

SmartWatch integration with TouchDown used to require a separate application from the Google Play Store, and we are happy to announce that we have now integrated SmartWatch notifications into the main TouchDown App – no separate App is needed.

Just set the SmartWatch up to sync with Touchdown and as long as you have the connector app on your device it should just be able to sync the notifications for new emails and appointments.  If you utilize a PIN policy, the PIN policy will be granted, meaning that only a  “You have new email” notifier will popup on your watch (Email details being displayed on the watch would violate the PIN policy).

 

If you have any questions, just email us at Support@NitroDesk.com – we are happy to help!

Daylight Savings Time

If you are noticing that there are events showing up an hour off in Touchdown this week or the next week, keep in mind we are in the midst of Daylight Savings Time, and different locations may switch over at different time. The reason you may be seeing events as showing up an hour off is that they may have originated in a timezone that has already entered Daylight savings time, or you have entered DST before they have.

For example, say someone in a location that switches to daylight savings time a week earlier than you has sent you a recurring call at 9AM. As they switch to DST, you would see the time of the event move to 10AM. This is because, even though your time has changed, they have moved an hour ahead. If you tried to call them at 9AM for your timezone, you would reach them an hour earlier according to their clocks. Once you switch over to daylight savings time a week later, as you’ve moved up an hour, the times should return to normal.

If you are finding the times aren’t returning to normal after all time zones have entered Daylight Savings Time, please contact us at support@nitrodesk.com.

Can your Employer Wipe your Phone?

An Survey released today indicated that 70% of employees would not use their personal devices for work if they had knowledge that their employer could remotely wipe or lock that device.  70% !! It’s clear that employees are beginning to recognize that just downloading their work email onto their personal devices such as phones, tablets and laptops means the Enterprise will want to secure that information, and that this is often done in an overbearing, infringement of privacy fashion.  Not that Enterprises are trying to interfere with their employees privacy, they are simply trying to protect their data in any way possible, and in the past, most MDM (Mobile Device Management) solutions have been similar to a linebacker knocking over a toddler to get the ball.

Eweek.com reported that “more than 75 percent of enterprises in the survey were unable to meet eight out of 10 of their current top security requirements– this was combined with the fact that only 11 percent of employees are aware of the current level of enterprise control over their device.”  

So what happens as more and more employees gain awareness of the tight infringements on their personal devices? Lack of compliancy, which leads to vulnerability of sensitive data, which can of course lead to – disaster for the Enterprise.

The study of 1,000 IT  person; and 1,000 employees, conducted by research firm Harris Interactive, found that 83 percent of staff would stop using their own device or still use it with deep concern, if they knew their employer could see what they were doing at all times.

So what’s the Solution?  Enterprises SHOULD protect their data on devices that leave the office, but the level of intrusion on an employee’s personal device needs to be kept in check too, to make sure employees will not feel intruded upon and actually be compliant.  The first step is to use a product/service that uses the minimum security necessary; in many cases there is no need for an Enterprise to monitor which websites employees visit or what games they install.  Keep the Enterprise’s data separate (sandboxed) and manage it that way – it is really more the management of the DATA versus the management of the device.  The second step is discussing these policies with the employees, so that they have full knowledge of what these policies entail and how it affects their personal devices.  Engage your employees in the solution, versus thrusting it upon them.

 Yes, these email policies ARE necessary. But they don’t need to necessarily infringe on your rights – there are solutions out there (our own Cockpit, for one, and likely others, in the future) that are cost-effective, keep company data safe and maintain your privacy.  Win-Win!