Experienced IT managers have learned the hard way: Just because end users aren’t complaining, it doesn’t mean they are happy with their tech.

But once mobile devices have been configured and distributed to your workforce, it’s often left up to the team members on the front lines to proactively provide feedback on what’s working and what’s hampering their productivity. The first time a retail associate experiences an inventory management app crashing on their device, for example, they might report it to their IT team. If the issue isn’t resolved right away, though, they might just accept that the app doesn’t work very well, and instead resort back to the old inventory log book.

In other industries, such as manufacturing, logistics or transportation, devices with connectivity issues or inadequate battery life to cover a full shift can cause massive headaches. IT departments haven’t traditionally had the necessary visibility across the device fleet to identify performance issues. They’ve also struggled to assess how well devices and apps are being utilized, and which factors might reduce the life cycle of their mobile assets.

Samsung is addressing these challenges with Knox Asset Intelligence, a cloud-based data analytics tool that is now part of Knox Suite. This solution builds upon the other products in Knox Suite — which help enterprises secure, deploy and manage mobile devices — by adding in-depth insights into device operation and performance data.

How Knox Asset Intelligence works

Available on Samsung’s rugged Galaxy XCover Pro smartphone and coming soon to other devices such as the Galaxy Tab Active3, Knox Asset Intelligence provides real-time reporting that would typically have been inaccessible to IT teams. This reporting includes deep insights into four areas: battery management, app stability, Wi-Fi connectivity and asset location. Analytics are accessed in a cloud console that provides a unified view across your entire fleet of Samsung devices.

With the ability to monitor and predict battery usage and performance, IT can proactively identify issues causing battery drain during the workday, and identify devices which need to have their batteries replaced before it impacts employee productivity. Knox Asset Intelligence’s smart battery management capabilities show you exactly how many times a low battery event occurs and whether devices are being charged at the right time, letting IT make informed decisions.

Your IT team can also use Knox Asset Intelligence to detect abnormal events stemming from business apps on an employee’s device, such as an app that regularly crashes or delivers unexpected errors. This helps prevent small problems from becoming worse, while also allowing IT to see how apps are being used across your entire mobile fleet by frequency, time of day and other filters.

Staying connected to Wi-Fi and device location

In many large project deployments, another common challenge arises when frontline workers have to pass through areas of varying Wi-Fi coverage and experience connectivity fluctuations or a dropped data connection. Knox Asset Intelligence not only detects those connection events, but helps IT identify the root cause, for everything from a DHCP fail to problems with third-party apps. By being able to diagnose Wi-Fi performance issues, network teams can be sure a mobile deployment starts off well and business continuity is maintained.

Finally, you can maximize the utilization of your company’s mobile devices by using Knox Asset Intelligence to monitor them through GPS-based location tracking — in real time. IT can also locate misplaced devices by having them ring at full volume, even if it is set to vibrate mode.

The Knox Asset Intelligence dashboards can be customized, and the data can also be downloaded into a CSV file. If your organization is already using a business intelligence platform, this CSV feature makes it easy to export the mobile device data for deeper analysis.

The bottom line: Knox Asset Intelligence gives enterprise IT a much deeper understanding of mobile device and app performance, helping ensure that any problems that could impact productivity are quickly resolved.

Read more about how Samsung Knox protects your Galaxy devices with defense-grade security, built in from the chip up.