HI Ian,

Building on Eilbron's reply, which applies to background data generally,  we need to understand the use cases for PlayStore in an Enterprise context..

The PlayStore app autoupdate feature has multiple variables.. First, "Auto-update Apps" is a 3-way switch: (  any time / WLAN only / don't = OFF ) ,
Then there are two "notify" toggle switches..   "App Updates Available" ( ON / OFF )  and "Apps Were Auto-Updated" ( ON / OFF ).

Would an Enterprise customer require control over all  these settings? would they require control over their initial values, to be set at staging or set at a particular time (such as remote deployment of a setting), but still allow the device user to reset as he wishes, or would they want to set the configuration and then prevent users from changing that configuration?  

This brings us to the fundamental question.. how does the Enterprise envision  PlayStore being used? Do they plan to deploy (and upgrade) applications from the PlayStore for use as Enterprise applications?  Do they plan to allow end users to download their own apps?

Would it be a better idea to turn on Whitelisting and NOT include PlayStore the White List?

EDIT:  you cannot stop a System App like GMS from running by whitelisting.. but you could Black List it..  the problem is that GMS functions are pretty interrelated, so that preventing one part from running may produce unexpected effects on other GMS functions. So careful testing should be done before deploying a Black List for any component of GMS.

Don't think we can change the default in pure Google code .. but if we built a CSP as part of MX (for the future) we could likely provision a setting for WiFi only, or turn auto updates OFF.

SECOND EDIT .. Allan reminds us that .  Since the ability to configure this is only available from INSIDE the PlayStore App, via its local settings menu, and NOT via the main Settings UI App, it MAY NOT be possible to set this from outside PlayStore.  A lot depends on how PlayStore stores this and whether it can be accessed from outside and/or whether a means to configure it is exposed.  Since the code for Google GMS Apps is NOT open source, we may not even be able to find out how to do it.  Or, it might turn out to be possible, but would require some research to determine if such a method exists

Hi Ian,
MX 4.4 allows you to configure (Enable/Disable, and Set ON/OFF) the Background Data.
Here is how it looks in StageNow 2.1 (FCS Aug 21st):

StageNow 2.0 and MX4.3 allow you to Set the Background Data ON/OFF but not Enable/Disable this feature.

There is no way to disable App Auto Update currently.

Regards,
Eilbron