The MobiControl Device Agent is the MobiControl software that is installed on mobile devices. Device Agents receive instructions from MobiControl Deployment Servers, execute the received instructions, and report status information back to Deployment Servers. Device Agents also send real-time information to Deployment Servers. The Device agent is also responsible for restoring the state of the device after a hard reset, servicing Remote Control sessions, installing/uninstalling packages, and synchronizing the device clock.

Device Agent Installation
The MobiControl Device Agent is typically distributed in the form of a CAB file to mobile devices. Before the Device Agent is installed onto a mobile device it must be created and customized via the Device Agent Creation Tool included in MobiControl Manager. The Device Agent Creation Tool allows the user to customize the CAB file for a particular installation and inserts all of the required parameters into the CAB file. In this way, there is no manual configuration needed on devices to install the CAB file. For example the IP address of deployment servers, as well as other configuration information, are packed into the agent CAB file so that as soon as the Agent is installed onto the mobile device, the device can immediately connect to MobiControl Deployment servers and get automatically configured and serviced. Pre-configuring the Device Agent CAB file in this way so that no user input is required during installation saves a lot of time for administrators especially when dealing with a large number of mobile devices.

Once configured, MobiControl can automatically install the agent software to devices over an ActiveSync connection. Agent software can also be installed onto the device by the device manufacturer, or it can be manually copied and installed onto devices.