Maximo Anywhere - Installation options for Windows applications.

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With Maximo Anywhere the options to install applications vary depending on the mobile platform.  Android and iOS both can be installed from the traditional Application Center,  sideloading iOS applications through iTunes or directly installing the APK's for Android, as well as other MDM options.  But when it comes to Windows the default installation process for the applications is a bit different and the Application Center is not used in the traditional manner.  That said, I have decided to make the installation options for Windows my next blog in assisting with your Maximo Anywhere implementation success. 

So to start,  what are our out of the box options? 

1.  Installation through the stand alone  Windows Store Application Center program bundled with MobileFirst. 

2.  Side loading the applications through Windows Power shell . 

I'm going to walk through both of these options but first I'm going to discuss what is required on Windows from a security standpoint to install these applications. 

Configure Windows 8.1 with Developer Registration

If using Windows 8.1, you can register for a developer account to side load the applications and install the certificate used to sign the applications to the Trusted People key store in Windows.   The certificate used to sign the applications can be found on the build server under the following folder. 

\IBM\Anywhere\MaximoAnywhere\apps\WorkExecution\windows8\native\MaximoAnywhere_TemporaryKey.pfx

Copy this file to the device and install to the Trusted People keystore on the Local Machine.  The out of the box password for these certificates is blank, however you should be creating your own certificates to sign the applications which may of had a password set.  If you need assistance with how to update the certificates used to build\sign the applications please see the following blog. 

Maximo Anywhere - Are your Windows builds failing because of expired certificates?

Configure Windows 8.1 without Developer Registration

Our second option for Windows 8.1 is for users who do not want to provide Developer Registration on each device,  for this we need to do a security group policy edit and instead of installing our certificate to Trusted People, we want to place it in the Trusted Root Certificate Authority store so the device knows our application is trusted.   Follow the steps below to do this.

a) On the tablet with 8.1 bring up the group policy editor by running gpedit.msc. 

b) Expand Administrative Templates under Computer Configuration - > Windows Components - > Then select App Package Deployment. 

c) Enable Allow All Trusted Apps to Install as seen below. 

d) Once the policy is enabled, you will want to take the same certificate we used in the first step and \IBM\Anywhere\MaximoAnywhere\apps\WorkExecution\windows8\native\MaximoAnywhere_TemporaryKey.pfx and install it to the 'Trusted Root Certification Authorities' as seen below. 

Configure Windows 10 Developer Mode

Windows 10 makes things a bit easier on the device as we can set the device to Developer Mode instead of having to do the Windows Developer registration on each as seen below.  Which allows you to install any signed app,  this still involves placing the same certificates as above in the Trusted People store.  The option can be found under settings - > Use developer features, or just search your Windows 10 device for "Developer mode".

Configure Windows 10 Sideload Mode

Similar to the above, we have the ability to set the Windows 10 device to a more secure option of 'Sideload apps'.  This will allow you to install any applications from other sources that you have trusted.  Meaning the application has been signed and that certificate is trusted on the device. 

a)  Same as the Developer Mode, but this time we want to select 'Sideload apps' as seen below

c)  With this option you must all add the signing certificate to the 'Trusted Root Certification Authorities'  keystore. 

*NOTE*  if you plan on loading the applications with Power Shell instead of the Application Center in Windows 10 you will need to do the same group policy edit done in the section "Configure Windows 8.1 without Developer Registration"

Now that we have our devices setup how we like, I'm going to discuss each of the install options you have out of the box and run through the process.  

Installing Maximo Anywhere using the IBM Application Center stand alone application

a) On your MobileFirst server there is a zip file called IBMApplicationCenterWindowsStore.zip located in the following folder.

C:\IBM\MobileFirst_Platform_Server\ApplicationCenter\installer

   Copy this file to your device and unzip it to a folder. 

b)  Run the IBMApplicationCenter.exe and log in to the Application Center, see the screenshot below as an example of what to enter on login.  Ensure if SSL is being used on the Application Center the SSL box has been          checked. 

c)  Once logged in you will see some of your applications,  click on 'All Applications' for the full list. 

d)  Click on the application you wish to install and you will be brought to the installation screen for that application as seen below. 

e)  Click install,  when the application finishes the install you will receive a message the same as shown below.  If there are problems with the mode your device is in, or the certificate the application will not install and present an error regarding either of those issues. See the above sections regarding device setup if this happens.

f)  You can now check for an launch your application from the start menu on the device. 

That's it for using the Application Center Windows Store app,  I will now show you how to side load the applications using Power Shell.

Installing Maximo Anywhere using Power Shell.

a)  Our second out of the box option is using the PowerShell scripts to install Maximo Anywhere.   After building the applications you will see a folder called 'windows_tablet_zips'  located in the Anywhere\MaximoAnywhere\bin folder.

b)  In the folder, you will see another folder called 'latest'  which contains the latest zips built for each application,  as seen below. 

c) You now want to copy or push the zips out to the device you want to install to.   I'm going to copy over the Inspection_7.6.1.zip file to my device. 

d) Extract the folder, then open up a Windows Power Shell as Administrator and change the directory to the folder you extracted as seen below. 

e) Now move in the the _x65_Test folder for the app and run the Add-AppDevPackage.ps1 script as you see below to side load the application.

f) Once complete, the same as the Application Center option you will now see the icon for the application you installed on the Device in the start menu ready to launch. 

That's all for today, I hope this was informative and helps those looking for different out of the box options to load the Maximo Anywhere Windows applications on the device.  I will continue to move forward writing Anywhere documentation to hopefully assist in simplifying your installs and implementations.  If there are any topics I haven't addressed that you would like more information on, or if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will get back to you.