Per-device DM layouts

Channel posts are the admin signal. The other half of the Slack story is the per-device summary DM sent directly to each end user — and that’s controlled by Slack Layouts.

A layout is a named, reusable config that decides what shows up in a user’s DM: which sections render, whether buttons are interactive, and which Slack channel the DM points at when the user clicks “Open in mngd”.

Where it lives

Settings → Notifications → Org defaults → Slack Layouts.

Every org has one default layout that catches devices not matched by any other rule. You can create additional named layouts and attach them to groups; mngd resolves a device to the highest-priority layout attached to any of its groups, falling back to the default.

Sections

Each layout toggles five sections on or off:

• Patch summary — apps the user has updates for, with one-click install via mngd:// deep link.
• Restart recommended — long-uptime endpoints. Currently dormant (waiting on the agent to report uptime).
• Compliance gaps — OS-level checks the device is failing (FileVault off, firewall off, etc.).
• CVE deadlines — open critical CVEs with a deadline.
• Pending commands — MDM commands queued for the device.

Toggle off whatever isn’t useful for that audience. Engineers probably want everything; sales probably wants just patch summary.

Interactivity depth

Controls what the buttons in the DM do:

• Agent URL with portal fallback (default) — buttons fire mngd://update?udid=…&label=… deep links into the user’s local mngd Mac app, which verifies the UDID matches the device and triggers the install. A /devices/:udid portal link is included as fallback.
• Portal link only — every button is a portal URL. Useful when rolling out before the new agent build with deep-link support has hit the fleet.

Channel override

Each layout can override the channel its “Open in mngd” links point at — handy for routing IT-team device DMs to a different team channel than engineering’s. Leave blank to use the org’s default routing.

Header links

A list of {label, url} pairs that render as a context block at the top of every DM under this layout. Common uses: link to your IT runbook, a Status page, a “request access” form.

Priority + groups

Layouts attach to groups via the Groups picker in the editor. A device resolves to a layout this way:

1. Find the highest-priority layout (lowest priority number) whose group set intersects the device’s groups.
2. If nothing matches, use the default layout.

Reorder priority with the up/down arrows on the layout list. Drag-to- reorder is on the roadmap; the arrows are reliable in the meantime.

A group can only be attached to one layout at a time — when you add a group that’s already attached elsewhere, the picker greys it out and shows which layout owns it.

End-user preferences

Delivery window (which days + hours), timezone, and the silent-install transparency toggle live in the mngd Mac app’s Preferences pane, not the portal. End users live in Slack and the Mac app — admins live in the portal — and we don’t want to make either group hop venues for routine settings.

If a user clicks Defer on a Slack DM and needs to undo it without opening the Mac app, they can do that from the user-scope tab on the portal’s notifications page (Your preferences).