Back to top
Home / Knox Manage / Quickstart guides /

Manage Android devices with the Android Management API

Last updated February 20th, 2025

Knox Manage lets you manage your fleet of Android devices and their apps through the Android Management API, which is the successor to the Google Play EMM API that first enabled Android Enterprise.

Knox Manage 23.09 and higher only supports work profile for Android Management API devices, and restricts the use of fully managed devices.

Android Management API devices need to have the Samsung Knox Manage (Companion) app installed. Additionally, the Android Device Policy app provides policy controller duties, unifying the policy deployment process across UEM solutions.

The Knox Manage integration of the Android Management API offers the same features, and serves the same use cases as previous APIs for Android device management. Knox Manage supports the Android Management API for the following deployment parameters:

  • Personally-owned and company-owned devices with work profiles

  • QR code enrollment

For app management, Android Management API makes exclusive use of Managed Google Play.

An overview of the four layers of the Android Management API technology stack: the UEM console (Knox Manage), the Android Management API (represented by the data in the profile), the policy payload (stored on Google's servers), and the device (managed by the Android Device Policy app).

Enroll a device with Android Management API

A user-based device is associated with a specific user account, and requires the device user to authenticate with their Knox Manage account during enrollment. By default, this strategy uses a QR code to initiate the enrollment flow, but you can also make use of enrollment providers like Knox Mobile Enrollment and Zero-touch.

The enrollment of the device is a two-step process:

Step 1 — Prepare the device for enrollment

  1. Factory reset and power off the device.

  2. On the Knox Manage console, go to User.

  3. Select the user, then click Request Enrollment. An enrollment email with the QR code is sent to the user.

Step 2 — The device user enrolls the device

  1. Power on the device.

  2. At the welcome screen, tap the screen six times. The QR code reader app automatically installs and launches.

  3. Using another device to display the enrollment email, scan the QR code with the device.

  4. On the Agree to Terms and Conditions screen, read and acknowledge the terms and conditions. If you agree, the sign-in screen opens with a Samsung Knox Manage logo.

  5. Sign in with the user account credentials.

As the sign-in URL for Android Management API devices is the same regardless of the enrollment method — QR code, Knox Mobile Enrollment, or Zero-touch — the Device page on the Knox Manage console categorizes the Enrollment Type of these devices as Others.

On this page

Is this page helpful?