Techniques to establish a communication system between an administrative node, such as a remote help desk, and an instance of a managed mobile app running on a mobile device are disclosed. In various embodiments, an indication is received to establish a help desk session associated with a mobile device. A help desk library embedded in mobile app code comprising a managed mobile app installed on the mobile device is used to provide the help desk session. The help desk library is configured to provide in real time to a help desk system external to the mobile device mobile app data associated with the managed mobile app while the managed mobile app is running on the mobile device.