To use Android in the enterprise, End users need Google Play accounts to deploy and manage apps and to access a curated Google Play store for your organization.
Managed Google Play Accounts
With managed Google Play Accounts, organizations that don’t use Google Workspace can still use Android in the enterprise to create Google Play logins for their users. Instead of Google Workspace accounts, the Admin will use a consumer Google account (i.e Gmail account) to log in as the administrator and take actions to create and manage these managed user accounts. A third-party enterprise mobility management (EMM) provider is required for the admin to begin this process and create these user accounts.
Managed Google Play accounts allow the admin to create accounts of the format xxxx, and add them directly onto the managed users device and log the users into Google Play. These user accounts do not have passwords and therefore end users cannot use them to log in anywhere other than on their android device.
Managed Google Play Accounts enterprise
A managed Google Play Accounts enterprise is a set of users, devices, and administrator accounts that are used to manage apps for your users. Your organization can have multiple managed Google Play Accounts enterprises. For more information see Organize managed Google Play Accounts enterprise.
The enterprise will have an Enterprise ID, which maps 1-1 to each EMM instance, and reflects that the EMM instance controls the enterprise and associated user accounts. Deleting the enterprise, or Removing the enterprise’s association with the EMM instance will result in the users losing access to Google Play, so take care to protect the Admin account.
Role Based Administration
A managed Google Play Accounts enterprise has 2 levels of administrator–Admin and Owner. For more information about these roles, see Assign roles in managed Google Play Accounts.
Setup Process for Managed Google Play accounts
To begin the process, the IT admin logs into their 3rd party EMM provider and begins the “set up Android” process (see the documentation for your EMM provider for specific steps). They will be prompted to specify the organization name, and the email address that the IT Admin will use to log in to manage the enterprise.
The EMM provider then uses APIs to create the Enterprise on behalf of the IT admin.
What can you do with Managed Google Play accounts?
Once the Managed Google Play enterprise is created, IT admins can utilize it to create and delete identities for end users, and install these identities onto managed android devices (via their EMM).
IT admins can also use their admin account to log into play.google.com/work to view and curate apps that will be visible to their managed users. In order to provide a seamless experience, EMMs may also provide a portal directly in their console, where IT admins can view and curate apps instead of needing to navigate to play.google.com/work.