Walkthrough: Adjusting the app with Threema MDM

Using Threema Work’s management cockpit, you can easily manage your subscriptions and users.

As Professional user, the management cockpit allows you to:

• Create quotations, and access orders and invoices
• Increase the number of users, and renew subscriptions
• Upgrade existing subscriptions, and purchase new ones
• Manage the users’ contact list
• Access Threema Broadcast
• Preconfigure the app
• Manage users and credentials
• Revoke IDs, and detach IDs from a subscription
• Set an in-app logo
• View statistics of your subscription
• Request support

In addition, Professional customers can manage users and subscriptions via API.

The management cockpit overview shows how many users are active (229), how many credentials are defined (20), and how many users have licensed Threema Work in total (281). In this example, the app can be activated on another 52 devices.

Add new users

First, make sure that the required number of credentials is available. Then, switch to the “Credentials” menu, and click on “Add/import credentials”.

• To add multiple users at at once (e.g., from a .csv file), switch to the “Bulk insert / Import” tab.
• Multiple devices can be activated using the same credentials: Instructions

If all credentials are activated (i.e., the number of active users and the total number of credentials are the same), click on the “Increase number of users” button in order to purchase additional licenses for the remaining duration of the subscription.

Transfer license to a new user

See Managing staff or device changes.

Licensing more users

If you need more users than are currently licensed (281 in the example above), simply click on “Increase number of users”.

Purchase additional licenses for external or temporary employees joining your team. You can integrate them in an existing subscription or keep them in a separate subscription.

Once the project is finished, you can withdraw their access to the Threema Work app and/or revoke their Threema IDs.

With the following settings, users of a subscription can only communicate with other users of thesame subscription or with contacts that were added manually in the management cockpit. The communication with external contacts is inhibited.

Note: If you use Threema Broadcast, please manually add your Broadcast ID as a contact (navigate to “Customization > Contacts > Add,” and enter your Broadcast ID). This way, your users are able to receive messages from your feeds and distribution list.

The following features are particularly useful when handling staff changes:

Withdraw access to the app
In the management cockpit, navigate to Credentials. Find the appropriate credentials, and click on the trash-can icon to delete the credentials.

Please note that it may take up to 24 hours until the former employee loses access to the app.

Please note:

• An ID revocation cannot be undone.
• As a Threema Work administrator, you can revoke a user’s Threema ID even if they have set an ID Revocation Password.
• It might take up to one hour for a revocation to take effect. After a Threema ID has been revoked, it will be displayed striked-through in contact lists of other users within 24 hours. If the option “hide inactive contacts” is enabled, the ID disappears entirely.

To revoke an ID, navigate to Users in the management cockpit. Find the appropriate Threema ID, and click on “Revoke ID” to revoke the Threema ID. Within about an hour, the affected user will be unable to send and receive messages.

Detach a Threema ID
By detaching a Threema ID from a subscription, the ID is removed from the subscription’s list of active users. Thus, it can no longer be revoked by subscription administrators, and it will no longer be labeled as internal contact.

However, the holder of the ID can continue to use it (either in the consumer app or using credentials of another Threema Work subscription). If the ID is used again in conjunction with credentials of this subscription, it will reappear in the list of active users.

To integrate Threema Work into your central directory service (such as MS Exchange, AD, or LDAP), please use our APIs:

• Threema Work API
• Broadcast API

Different ways of integrating Threema Work into your central directory service are illustrated below.

In-app contact list

The Threema Work app can optionally synchronize its contact list with the address book of the mobile device. If the address book is linked to your central directory service (e.g., MS Exchange, AD, or LDAP), the contacts are mapped automatically to the appropriate Threema IDs, and contacts who use Threema appear in the app’s contact list. Learn here how to label internal contacts.

If you disable contact synchronization on the mobile devices, you can still add contacts via the management cockpit. The Threema Work API allows to automate the process of adding contacts to the management cockpit.

User management

Using the Threema Work API, you can automate administration and user management. Any management task that can be completed using the management cockpit can be completed using the API, for example:

• Define, edit, and remove credentials
• Manage the contact list
• Revoke or detach Threema IDs
• Preconfigure the app (set a nickname, link a phone number, etc.)

Broadcast: Groups, feeds, and distribution lists

Threema Broadcast is the perfect tool for efficient top-down communication. Using the Broadcast API, you can dispatch messages and manage feeds, distribution lists, and groups. Integrating Threema Broadcast into your directory service (e.g., MS Exchange, AD, or LDAP) is quite easy.

Threema Work users’ contact lists can be managed as follows:

Label internal contacts
The colored dots next to a contact indicate the verification level. Internal contacts (i.e., contacts that are part of the same Threema Work subscription) can be labeled with the blue verification level. In the management cockpit, navigate to “App Contacts > Settings” to (de)activate “Mark internal contacts”.

Make contacts available
In the management cockpit, you can specify contacts that will be added to the contact lists of all users of the subscription. To manually add contacts, navigate to “App Contacts”, and click on “Add manually”. To automatically make all users of the subscription available to each other, open “App Contacts > Settings” and set “Activate new users automatically” to “On”.

If a contact is deactivated after it was already made available, it will remain in the contact lists of the current users, but it won’t be labeled with two blue dots anymore. However, disabled contacts will not be added to contact lists of new users.

Corporate directory

For large organizations comprising of several hundred or even thousands of members, making all contacts available (s. above) inevitably leads to an overwhelmingly long contact list. Here’s where the “corporate directory” comes into play. It allows users to quickly look up other members of the same organization right in the app. Add to that the ability to query all members of a given department using categories (and the wildcard search).

Setting up the “corporate directory” is simple and straightforward; please refer to the dedicated step-by-step guide for details.

Good to know: If the company directory is active but should not be available in the app to certain users, set the “th_disable_work_directory” parameter in Threema MDM to “On” and “true” for these users. This way, they won’t be able to access the company directory.

Restrict communication to internal contacts (Closed user group)

Using the following Threema MDM settings, users of a subscription can only communicate with other users of the same subscription or with contacts that were added manually in the management cockpit (see “Make contacts available” above). The communication with external contacts is disabled.

The “subscription group” feature allows you to share the company directory across several subscriptions and thus search contacts in all of the subscriptions that belong to the same group. To use the feature, at least two subscriptions of the Professional and/or Education price plan have to be grouped, and the company directory needs to be activated.

If you want to allow your users to search contacts across several subscriptions , please proceed as follows:

1. Log into your Threema Work admin account.
2. Activate the company directory in the subscriptions you want to group: navigate to “App contacts > Settings” and activate the switch next to “Activate company directory.”
3. In the “Subscriptions” overview, tap on the “Create new subscription group” button.
4. Define a name for your subscription group.
5. Drag and drop the required subscriptions into the subscription group.

If the company directory should not be available in the app for certain users, adjust the corresponding setting in Threema MDM as described here under “Corporate directory.”

Good to know: contacts that have been found and added to the local address book via the company directory are labeled with two blue dots as an internal contact.

The tilde character (~) in front of a contact name indicates that the name displayed is a nickname (e.g. “~Bob”). A user can choose any nickname, and it might not correspond to the actual name of said user (e.g. “Robert Smith”).

In the following cases, the tilde is not displayed:

• You define the first and last name of users using your administrator privileges (via MDM parameters or in the contact list that you provide through the management cockpit).
• Contact synchronization is enabled, and the ID matches an email address and/or telephone number of a contact stored in the local address book. In this case, the contact list will show the name stored in the local address book instead of the nickname.
• The user entered the name manually in the contact details in the app. In this case, the contact’s name is displayed, not the nickname.

Contact list in the app

It can take up to 24 hours until new users are visible or contact changes become effective in the app’s contact list. However, the synchronization can be forced manually in the app by pulling down the contact list.

Contact list in the management cockpit

The management cockpit and Threema’s directory server sync once per hour. Therefore, it can take up to one hour until new users are visible in the management cockpit’s “Contacts”.

In-app logo

Increase your employees’ identification with the app by placing your logo in the app’s header.

Contact-list management

Add contacts to your users’ contact lists. Internal contacts are labeled with two blue dots. Learn more…

Custom support form

Define how your users get first-level support by integrating your own support form into the app.

As a subscription’s administrator, you can add additional administrators and define the scope of their access privileges.

In the management cockpit, navigate to “Access privileges”. First, click on “Add user” to add a user. Then, set the user’s access privileges by ticking the appropriate checkboxes.

Additionally protect access to your management cockpit with two-factor authentication using Threema or another service of your choice.

1. Log in at https://work.threema.ch/en/login.
2. In the menu, select “Profile”, and click on “Login and security”.
3. Follow the instructions.
4. Store the backup codes you obtain after completing the setup. Using these codes, you are able to sign in if you should ever lose your mobile device.

Firewall settings can prevent the Threema Work app from establishing a connection to the Threema server, or they might block access to the management cockpit. To resolve this issue, please open the appropriate TCP ports.

Threema Work app: TCP ports 443 and 5222 need to be open for outgoing connections. Messages are transmitted through port 5222; port 443 serves as fallback in case of delays. For directory queries (synchronization of contacts, etc.) and media transmissions, HTTPS port 443 is used.

Threema calls: UDP port 3478 needs to be open for outgoing connections.

Management cockpit: TCP port 443 needs to be open for outgoing HTTPS connections.

If you experience connectivity issues with the desktop app or the web client, please refer to this FAQ article.

Threema Work offers several backup options that differ in various respects:

	ID export	Data backup	System backup	Threema Safe
MDM parameter	th_disable_id_export	th_disable_data_backups	th_disable_system_backups	Documentation
OS	Android, iOS	Android	iOS	Android, iOS
Threema ID
Chats, including media files
Contacts, group memberships, and app settings
Can be managed by admins		With external MDM system	With external MDM system
Can be created by users
Storage location	File or email	File	iTunes or iCloud	Threema / Custom server
Storage duration	Custom	Custom	Custom	180 days / Custom

By default, all backup options are available. Use MDM parameters to restrict some or completely disable all backup options:

Don’t allow any kind of backup

To prevent your users from creating any kind of backup, use th_disable_backups. (This parameter overrides all parameters listed below.)

Prevent ID exports

To prevent your users from exporting their Threema ID, set the parameter th_disable_id_export totrue.

Prevent data backups (Android)

In Threema Work for Android, users can create data backups. To prevent this, set the MDM parameter th_disable_data_backups, to true.

Prevent inclusion in OS backups (iOS)

iTunes backups can include Threema data. Set th_disable_data_backups to true to exclude Threema data from OS backups. Due to a restriction on iOS’ part, it’s not possible to distinguish between iTunes and iCloud backups.

Threema Safe

Set the MDM parameter th_safe_enable to false to prevent users from creating Threema Safe backups. To learn more about the configuration of Threema Safe using MDM parameters, please refer to this Help article.

You can use MDM parameters to define which backup options are (not) available to your users. By default, all backup options are available.

Do not allow any backups at all

To prevent your users from creating any kind of backup, use th_disable_backups. (This parameter overrides all parameters listed below.)

Prevent ID export

To prevent your users from exporting their Threema ID, set the MDM parameterth_disable_id_export to true.

Prevent data backups (Android)

In Threema Work for Android, users can create data backups. To prevent this, set the MDM parameter th_disable_data_backups to true.

Prevent inclusion in OS backups (iOS)

iCloud/iTunes backups can include Threema data. Set th_disable_system_backups totrue to exclude Threema data from OS backups.

Threema Safe

Set the MDM parameter th_safe_enable to false to prevent users from creating Threema Safe backups. To learn more about the configuration of Threema Safe using MDM parameters, please refer to this Help article.

User management in management cockpit

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App use on mobile device (smartphone or tablet)

Other operating systems are not supported.