Fingerprint Security and MS Intune

[Navrig]

My employer has movbed my MS Outlook to Office365 and disabled access to Good Technology for mobile email.

I have accepted this change on my Samsung Tab2 S as it means I wont have to carry my laptop everywhere.  However when I installed Intune and the other Office365 apps my fingerprint scanner was disabled and I was forced to create a 6+ digit alphanumeric password.  I can live with this on my tablet.

But I cannot live with it on my phone.  Entering a 6 digit password everytime I wish to make a call, sms or look at Facebook is too much.  The fingerprint scanner was great.

I have checked on various sites and it is a known issue for Android phones compared to the recent iPhone which does not have to disable the FP scanner.

What I cannot find out is if this is just a Samsung issue as a result of how they install the FP scanner software or is it the same with all Android handsets?

and

Will an upgrade to Marshallow, which I understand has its own FP software, fix it?

If Marshmallow fixes it when will Vodafine roll out Marshmallow to the S5?

[Nabs]

Hi @Navrig

The restriction has been added by your Office365 administrator. It will be one of likely many security policies they have put in place on Office 365 to prevent unauthorised access. You can find more information about setting up mobile devices policies in Office 265 from this Microsoft Technet article

Where to go next then; I assume your employer won't be in any hurry to relax the security requirements on your Exchange server however there does appear to be some alternative people of the internet have found.

Check out this blog: https://satnix.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/galaxy-s5-issue-with-microsoft-exchange/

He claims to have gotten around the issue using a third party app.

Regarding Marshmallow; it does add native support for fingerprint readers in Android though I haven't had chance to look at the details of how it's implemented yet. Any update to the OS would need to come from Samsung before being approved by Vodafone. As far as I can find online the Tab2 S isn't in line for the update, only the Tab A has been confirmed.

[Navrig]

Thanks for your reply.

Interestingly enough I have just received an update notifaction which is downloading right now.

I'll wait and see where this takes me to Android version.

[Navrig]

I installed CloudMagic and it works fine with Office360 mail and the Samsung FP scanner however using a 3rd party app contravenes my employer's rules so before getting caught I have deleted it.

So I am back to my original question.

Will Marshmallow allow FP security in conjunction MS Intune?

[Nabs]

@Navrig simple answer, no idea! Ultimately it's down to Microsoft, and in turn your employer, to ensure they support the system.

I'm hoping to get my hands on a Nexus 6P in the next few weeks, if I can I'll do some experimenting with Office 365 and the fingerprint scanner and see if I can make them work together without a 3rd party app.