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How to customize Home Screen Layout for iOS devices

Customize and arrange apps, app groups, and web clips on supervised iOS devices using the Home Screen Layout policy in Hexnode. IT admins can organize the apps and folders on the home screen and the dock, create new pages and more to unify the look and interface of all their managed devices. This helps to create a custom device home screen as per your organizational needs.

With an intuitive and simplistic UI, Hexnode UEM makes it easier for admins to arrange the apps on the home screen as they wish. It lets you configure the Home Screen Layout and customize exactly how the apps, app groups, and web clips are arranged on-screen.

Notes:

Customizing Home Screen Layout is supported only for supervised iOS 9.3+.
This feature is available only on Ultimate and Ultra subscription plans.
Customizing the arrangement of web clips on the home screen is supported only on iOS 11.3+ devices.

Configure Customized Home Screen Layout for iOS devices

To customize the iOS device home screen and dock by adding apps, app groups and web clips,

Log in to your Hexnode portal.
Select an existing policy or create a new one by clicking on New Policy.
Select Home Screen Layout from iOS > Configurations and click on Configure.
- You can add either Apps, App Groups, or Web Clips to the home screen layout.
- You can also add either Apps, App groups, or Web Clips to the dock.
- It is also possible to increment the layout pages by clicking on the + button present below the layout screen. If not required, it can be removed by clicking on – button present below the layout screen. You can add up to seven pages for the home screen.
After configuring, associate the policy with the devices.

You can associate the policy with the devices by two methods.

If the policy has not yet been saved,

Navigate to Policy Targets.
Click on +Add Devices.
Select the devices and click OK.
Click on Save to apply the policies to devices.

Apart from devices, you can also associate the policies with Device Groups, Users, User Groups, or Domains from “Policy Targets”.

If the policy has been saved, you can associate it with another method.

From Policies, check the policies to be associated.
Click on Manage → Associate Targets and select the devices.
Click on Associate to apply the policy to the devices.

Notes:

If the Home Screen Layout configuration is associated with a device, the apps can be uninstalled only via the Hexnode MDM portal or from Settings > Storage on the device. In this case, you cannot uninstall an app from the home screen by touching and holding the app, and tapping the cross mark when the app jiggles.
The apps installed on the device that are not included in the layout will be displayed in alphabetical order.
If the same app has been added twice, one inside the folder and other outside the folder, then the app can reside either inside or outside the folder.
iPhone devices support adding up to four apps/groups/web clips to the dock on the screen. If more than four apps are added, only the first four apps would fit in the iPhone dock, and the rest would be hidden.
Above iOS 11, the iPad dock fits up to 13 apps at once, and up to 6 apps till iOS 10.3.3.
Hexnode automatically checks for any newly installed apps on the iOS devices every 15 minutes. An admin can also manually initiate the scan (Manage > Devices > Actions > Scan Device) to check for new apps. Suppose it detects the presence of any new apps on the devices. In that case, it will automatically push the home screen layout policy again with the latest apps. If these apps are not already added to the home screen layout policy, they’ll appear only on the last page of the device screen.
Suppose system apps are installed on the devices at a later stage after associating a home screen layout policy. In that case, the system apps cannot be detected by the MDM server, and such apps will be placed accordingly as per the default iOS behavior.