Before I talk about what we changed to brand the Self Service app, I thought it would be useful to talk about what exactly branding does for encourage users to adopt the Self Service system and enroll in the management system.
Thanks to some savvy Casper Admins over on JAMFNation, I was able to further customize the Volusion App store (formerly Self Service). Now, the task bar says Volusion App Store rather than Self Service, which makes the application look more consistent.
Before I talk about what we changed to brand the Self Service app, I thought it would be useful to talk about what exactly branding does for encourage users to adopt the Self Service system and enroll in the management system.
Really, the importance of branding comes down to this: showing that this is a system with them in mind, and is an internal application that is a perk of working for the company (in this case, Volusion). Volusion is big on perks; having its own App Store just for Volusion Mac users is definitely a perk!
So what exactly would you want to re-brand?
Before I talk about what we changed to brand the Self Service app, I thought it would be useful to talk about what exactly branding does for encourage users to adopt the Self Service system and enroll in the management system.
Really, the importance of branding comes down to this: showing that this is a system with them in mind, and is an internal application that is a perk of working for the company (in this case, Volusion). Volusion is big on perks; having its own App Store just for Volusion Mac users is definitely a perk!
So what exactly would you want to re-brand?
The first thing a user will see when opening the Self Service app will be the login page, which includes a splash image behind the login fields. The top of the application is a Self Service title, a JSS logo in the status bar, Self Service over in the Self Service Plug-ins.
The task bar at the top of the screen will say Self Service.
And of course the dock icon will be a generic icon for the Self Service Application.
All of these things will need to be changed to brand the Self Service app to feel like an in-house App Store.
Breaking down what you need to change will make the process easier, even if you don't feel that you're graphic-savvy or coding-savvy. I have a little experience with both, so I made most of the changes myself.
- The name of the app. This is done by just renaming the .app file. Easy peasy.
- This involves opening the .app contents and replacing some images.
- This file is actually stored in the Tomcat server; you can grab the original there, tweak in Photoshop, then replace back on the Tomcat server.
- The task bar. This is probably the trickiest part, and involves editing the Info.plist inside the .app file.
- This is the easiest part, adding Self Service plugins relevant to your peers through the JSS.
- Not pictured, this is the dock icon. Another edit inside the .app file replacing a few .png files. I'm still waiting for a UX Designer here at Volusion to cook up something for ours.
It took me a few hours to get everything together because I needed logos and icons for the plug-ins and icons in the app itself.
Next week I'll put together a step-by-step guide for each part of this, particularly 1-4 and 6, in branding the Self Service app.
An important note; this branded Self Service app cannot be a part of the automatic-install Self Service option in the JSS. You have to set up a policy to deploy it to machines. Though it is pretty easy to set up a policy to install this branded version of the app on enrollment. I'll talk about that too.
Have a great weekend!
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