The out of the box Cordova windows visual studio template does not product an artefact which can be deployed through an MDM, this presentation shows it can be modified to achieve this goal

1. Deploying Enterprise Cordova
Windows Phone Apps
Adam Birr

2. Problems
 Out of the box Cordova Windows Phone project has the following enterprise
issues:
 Airwatch upload didn’t recognise the Appx file as a Windows Phone app
 Dependencies not automatically downloaded
 Requires a redundant dummy DLL which is only used to sign the app
 Product ID not configurable
 Intune can only upgrade Appx files and not Appxbundles

3. Fixing Cordova
 Two options
1. Fix default Cordova template to handle enterprise deployment
 Push our changes back to the open source community
2. Alter the Cordova build after the default template is pulled down using the built in
hook mechanism
 Chose option 2
 No delays in waiting for approval from community
 Hook mechanism easy to understand – allows custom code to be executed during
various points of the execution process
 Implemented a number of pre-compile hooks
 Hooks written in Javascript executed by Nodejs

4. Uploading Windows Phone Appx files to
Airwatch
 Airwatch expects the TargetFrameworkMoniker build:Item to be present in the
AppxManifest
 AppxManifest is a generated artifact of the MSBuild process
 Solution:
 Write a Cordova Windows pre-compile hook to alter the CordovaApp.Phone.jsproj file
 Added:
<TargetFrameworkIdentifier>WindowsPhoneApp</TargetFrameworkIdentifier>
<TargetFrameworkVersion>8.1</TargetFrameworkVersion>
to the section:
<PropertyGroup Label=“Configuration”>

5. Dependencies not automatically downloaded
 Enterprise Windows app do not automatically download Javascript dependencies
 Cordova requires the WinJS dependency to enable it to launch a webview
 Solution:
 Download the latest version of the WinJS library
 Write a Windows pre-compile hook to add files to the Cordova Windows template
 Alter the index.html file of the app to reference the WinJS files included in the project

6. Redundant dummy DLL
 Required for the sign process in order to produce a CodeIntegrity.cat file
 In order to make the code upgradable, the DLL must have a different version
number and have a code change for each new app version
 Solution
 Create a simple DLL project in Visual Studio with a simple class file
 Write a Cordova Windows pre-compile hook which
 Adds a new method to the simple class file
 Alters the version number of the DLL
 Compiles the DLL using MSBuild
 Adds the resultant artifact to default Cordova Windows Template

7. Configurable Phone Product ID
 Microsoft Intune identified an application’s uniqueness by the phone product ID
GUID found in the AppxManifest file
 Windows Cordova template generates a new product ID for every build
 Solution:
 Write a Windows Cordova pre-compile hook to take a configurable product ID GUID

8. Intune can only upgrade Appx files
 Cordova builds an Appxbundle by default
 Appxbundles contain multiple Appx files, often for internationalisation
 Airwatch can only upload Appx files and Intune can only upgrade Appx files
 Solution:
 Write a Windows Cordova pre-compile hook
 Add <AppxBundle>Never</AppxBundle> to the CordovaApp.Phone.jsproj file

9. Conclusion
 Just because Microsoft supports Cordova and has Cordova templates built into
Visual Studio, it does not mean it will be compatible with Microsoft’s Intune MDM
when used out of the box
 Cordova Hooks can be very useful
 Alter the jsproj file to change what is put into the Appxmanifest file