IT Pro: Mass deployment of Xink App for MacOS using Microsoft Intune.

This step-by-step is written for Xink Admin, IT Administrator, and System Administrator as they're responsible for the mass deployment of Xink to macOS users.
We assume that your macOS user's devices were already enrolled in your Microsoft Intune before deploying Xink to it.

Please read the Microsoft KB article for inspiration and for more detail on how to deploy an application via MS Intune.


Part 1 - Prepare the Xink package for mass deployment

1. Download the Xink.pkg and the Microsoft Intune App wrapping tool for macOS and then save them in the same folder.


2. Execute the following commands using macOS terminal inside the folder where you store the files and then generate the wrapped files 'Xink.pkg.intunemac'

chmod +x IntuneAppUtil


./intuneAppUtil -c ./Xink.pkg -o ./ -v





Create and deploy the Xink.pgk.intunemac using Microsoft Endpoint Manager (admin center)
Login to -> https://intune.microsoft.com/#view/Microsoft_Intune_DeviceSettings/AppsMenu/~/allApps

 NOTE: Xink app will be installed and found on the Application folder.



Part 2 - Set the Xink token so the app can connect to Xink portal.

Overview

The Xink app requires a special Xink domain token and the user's email address to get the user's email signatures from the Xink portal.  That means you have to set the token and the email address as a user setting on each Mac before the Xink app can run.  

This requires the following steps.

  • Get the Xink domain token.
  • Create a script to set the user settings.
  • Deploy the script using Microsoft Intune.

Get the Xink domain token from Xink portal

The Xink app needs a unique token to identify your Xink account.

Login to your Xink admin portal and click the big gear icon at the top right corner.
In Downloads click Step 2 - IT: Obtain the ADM template (HKLM registry) link.

Now click Add to create a token if you do not already have one, and click the copy icon to the right of your token to copy the token to the clipboard.

Create a script to set the user settings

You can download the script and all the Xink supported plist settings at our Github page to write your own script.  Otherwise, create a new file with a .sh extension and paste the following code into the file.

#!/bin/bash
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink hideInfobox -int 0
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink hideQuitMailInfobox -int 0
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink isUsingICloudDrive -int 0
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink updateSignaturesAutomatically -int 0
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink updateSignaturesForMail -int 0
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink updateSignaturesForOutlook -int 1
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink userName -string "$(whoami)@INSERTYOUREMAILDOMAIN.COM"
defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink domainToken -string "INSERT YOUR XINK DOMAIN TOKEN HERE"

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to make login item at end with properties {name:"Xink", path:"/Applications/Xink.app", hidden:false}'

Replace with your email domain name and your Xink domain token.

NOTE: Create a second script and replace the domain if you have multiple active domains within your tenant.

Note that the script uses whoami to set the users email.  This may not be correct in your case depending on how your users log into their Macs.  Instead you can use the "emailDomain" setting like so.

defaults write com.emailsignature.Xink emailDomain -string "acme.com"

Xink will then automatically find the email for any account registered in Outlook or Mail for the "acme.com" domain and use that to sign into Xink.


This table shows what the different settings mean. 

SettingDescription

domainToken

The domain token you found in the step above. 
userNameThe email address for the user of the Mac.
updateSignaturesForMailSet to 1 if you want Xink to set signatures for Mac Mail. Otherwise 0.  Must be set to 1 if updateSignaturesForOutlook is set to 0, otherwise Xink.app will not do anything.
updateSignaturesForOutlookSet to 1 if you want Xink to set signatures for Microsoft Outlook. Otherwise 0.  Must be set to 1 if updateSignaturesForMail is set to 0, otherwise Xink.app will not do anything.
isUsingICloudDriveSet to 1 if updateSignatuesForMail is set to 1 and the user uses iCloud for backing up emails.  Otherwise 0.  This setting is ignored if updateSignatuesForMail is 0.

Deploy the script in Microsoft Endpoint Manager

  1. Go to Microsoft Endpoint Manager.
  2. Go to Devices -> macOS -> Shell scripts 
  3. Download script, edit and upload this shell script -> Click "Add"
  4. Give your script a name and a description and click "Next".
  5. Make sure you choose "Run script as signed-in user".  Otherwise, the whoami command will not work.

    The script will run only once on each target Mac device, you may configure the script to run multiple times as required.


    Click "Next".
  6. Add the groups and users that you want to run the script for.  Click "Next" and finally "Add".


You can check if the script has run successfully by running this command on Terminal on one of the target Macs:

defaults read com.emailsignature.Xink

If the script has run it will list the settings.

NOTE: The 'Preferences' menu is disabled when the Xink addin is deployed with a domain token. You can delete the domain token and use an activation code instead.


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