What's new in Mobile Center 3.2

Mobile Center 3.2 includes a number of new features, enhancements, and fixes. To try Mobile Center, download a trial version.

What's new video

Watch the What's New video:

Single sign-on (SSO) support

Mobile Center 3.2 supports single sign-on via SAML 2.0. When SSO is enabled, the need to log in to Mobile Center separately is eliminated. Users have the same set of credentials for Mobile Center as they do for other SSO applications in their organization.

For more details on how to set up SSO authentication, see SAML SSO integration.

Full app interactions

We've extended the application interaction abilities in the device control panel to allow interaction with all applications on the device, not just those uploaded to Mobile Center. Now you can also use the control panel to launch and terminate apps that were not installed on the device from Mobile Center.

For more details, see Device actions & simulations.

Execution key

For improved security, an execution key can now be used when connecting a testing tool to Mobile Center, instead of a user name and password.

The key consists of the client ID and secret. Both users and administrators can generate these keys. For details, see User account actions and access key management and Access key management.

An execution key is mandatory when accessing devices using Dev Access, or when configuring the connection to Mobile Center from a testing tool when SSO is enabled.

Improved iOS packaging & signing service

The iOS packager service and manual packaging tool (MC Enabler) are now provided in a single installation package. Additional improvements include:

Installer, providing step-by-step guidance for installing the packager service
Support for upgrades
Reduced size ( lightweight service)
Easy to add additional services, or to remove services
Improved logging
Web interface for manual signing and packaging. In addition to using the service for auto-packaging of apps, you can also manually package an app by accessing the service user interface from your browser.

For details, see Automatic signing services and Package an iOS app manually with the packager service.

Enhanced application upload size

We've increased the maximum file size that you can now upload to Mobile Center. Mobile Center now supports uploading apps of up to 1GB in size.

Enhanced user permission settings

We've introduced two new administration settings for restricting actions that non-admin users can perform on devices.

Change device settings

Preserving the configuration of lab devices is integral to the accuracy of the testing environment. With a large number of people sharing the same devices, it's possible that someone may change the settings. This change could affect the test results for others running tests on the same device.

To assist with the maintenance of the device lab, we've added a new admin management capability allowing administrators to control whether users can change the settings of lab devices.

Change device name

In addition, meaningful device names can help the administrator to identify devices, and make it easier to manage and maintain the device lab. For this reason, the administrator may also want to prevent users from changing the device name.

For more details, see User permissions.

Installation improvements

When you install Mobile Center, you can now use an existing Mobile Center database schema.

You can now choose to automatically back up the Mobile Center server database before upgrade. If the upgrade fails, you can restore the server and database.

The application upgrade is now asynchronous, reducing downtime of the Mobile Center server during upgrade. Users can now access the upgraded server and continue using Mobile Center while apps are being upgraded.

Other enhancements & updates

Applications

Applications are no longer stored in the database but are saved to the file system. When installing or upgrading, you can select a destination folder for storing applications uploaded to Mobile Center.

You can also control the number of uploads per application, and choose to automatically delete old uploads of an application. This makes it easier for the Mobile Center administrator to manage the number of application uploads that need to be maintained, and reduces load on the file storage system. This option is available during upgrade, or in the general Administration settings.

Dev Access-iOS

You can now use a Linux or Windows machine when using Dev Access to connect to an iOS device.

Bulk reservation of devices

When you create a new reservation in DEVICE LAB > RESERVATIONS, you can now select multiple devices to reserve.

Remote device viewer support for Android secure layout

The Android secure layout flag treats the content of a window as secure, preventing it from appearing in screenshots or from being viewed on non-secure displays. The Mobile Center connector properties can now be modified to support remote viewing of apps that use the Android FLAG_SECURE, without having to instrument the app to remove the flag. In addition, Chrome incognito mode and customized device manufacturer settings, such as the secure layout enabled lock screen on Huawei Nova devices, are now also supported. For details, see Android secure layout.

Bulk API operations

Mobile Center REST API now also supports the following bulk operations for administrators:

When creating a new user, assign the user to multiple workspaces
Delete multiple users
Assign/remove multi users to or from a workspace

For details, see REST API reference for Digital Lab.

Supported integrations

Support for the latest releases of Micro Focus testing tools:

UFT 14.53
LeanFT 14.53
LoadRunner/ TruClient 12.63
Silk 19.5

For What's New in mobile functional testing, see the UFT and LeanFT help centers.

Appium

We're rolling out a newer version of Appium embedded in Mobile Center. Mobile Center 3.2 supports Appium 1.13.

Idea Exchange

Do you have a feature suggestion or an enhancement request? With the new Idea Exchange, you can submit ideas, vote on submissions, and collaborate with colleagues, partners and our Product Team. Help to make enhancements more meaningful and to keep the product relevant to your needs, by adding comments and voting for your favorite ideas.