Need a crash course on Ipads in schools

Hi

I have just started my first job as an IT tech, as part of my job I'm covering a few schools. Next week some of them are getting 10+ Ipads and I've got to get them in ASAP.
I've been asked to link all the Ipads to one account and make sure that in app purchasing is off.
What's the best way to do this that can be done quickly and with as little risk of it going wrong as possible and without costing anything if possible?
Can I just install Itunes on one PC and sync all the Ipads from that or is there a much better way to do this?

Depends if you're likely to get any more in.

If it's only 10 you might be easier just to use itunes, but remember licensing issues.

If you're buying these as a trial, and then want a lot more it'd be advisable to get a proper system setup. Whether this is Apple Configurator, or Profiles if you have a OSX server etc?

Steve

Try Meraki - Just looking at it now (signed up yesterday). Looks like it might do what you want.

You need to jailbreak them, It just give you so many more options to lock them down.

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Originally Posted by Mcom

You need to jailbreak them, It just give you so many more options to lock them down.

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Doesn't that invalidate warranties and open up them up for additional virus / hacking?

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Originally Posted by CamelMan

Doesn't that invalidate warranties and open up them up for additional virus / hacking?

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Yes, but you can all ways revert the jailbreak, and not to sure about viruses

I wouldnt recommend Jailbreaking them! I use Meraki, its free and enables you to manage them online. There isnt many restrictions you can apply but they're not designed to be restricted. If you've only got 10 you can set up a single apple ID, you can buy an app and install it onto 10 different iPads using the same account.

Also - What ages group are using them? I would recommend disabling the camera, teenagers like to take stupid pictures of themselves and set them as the background. Meraki lets you quickly re-enable it if its needed.

Thanks.
Defiantly not going to jailbreak them there would be hell to pay if they went wrong and I had done that.
The school is only a small primary school so most likely won't need any more so I'll look at doing it through Itunes for now and look into Meraki before one of the bigger schools ask for them (which I'm sure will happen soon).
Other than licensing is there anything else that can go wrong with using Itunes on one PC and syncing them
Thank you for your help

We have 6 iPads synced from from iTunes account. Each iPad is set to automatically download new apps, which then keeps them all the same. No one else has the iTunes password apart from me and the headteacher so this prevents them from downloading new apps. That's a very basic way of doing it, but with the number of devices, it works for us.

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Originally Posted by Cooners

Thanks.
Defiantly not going to jailbreak them there would be hell to pay if they went wrong and I had done that.
The school is only a small primary school so most likely won't need any more so I'll look at doing it through Itunes for now and look into Meraki before one of the bigger schools ask for them (which I'm sure will happen soon).
Other than licensing is there anything else that can go wrong with using Itunes on one PC and syncing them
Thank you for your help

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I found that if I setup 1 'master' iPad and created a backup of it in iTunes, and then restored that backup to the remaining iPads (to make them all identical), some of the settings would not copy across very well, so I ended up manually fixing each iPad. We now use Apple Configurator to do the same thing but it works a lot better, although it's free, the Mac you need to run it and the sync trolley are not cheap.

Apple does a volume-purchase-program that may make it easier to manage.

Apple - Education - Volume Purchase Program

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Originally Posted by Grey-gear

Apple does a volume-purchase-program that may make it easier to manage.

Apple - Education - Volume Purchase Program

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Volume purchase program is good for buying apps in bulk, but only if you're buying them for many accounts, the pricing is a bit silly though. If you buy 19 you are charged full price but as soon you buy 20+ you get them all half price so it's actually cheaper to buy 20 than it is to buy 19.

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Originally Posted by APMerry

Volume purchase program is good for buying apps in bulk, but only if you're buying them for many accounts, the pricing is a bit silly though. If you buy 19 you are charged full price but as soon you buy 20+ you get them all half price so it's actually cheaper to buy 20 than it is to buy 19.

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It's a 50% discount on 20 or more licences, so it's cheaper to buy 20 than to buy 11! But that won't help the OP if they're only buying 10 iPads.

I'm still finding my way round, but you can get Apple configurator for Windows and with the free Meraki MDM, you should be able to do most of what's required for this relatively small deployment without spending more money with Apple.

I'm introducing Meraki at home :) At bedtime wifi goes off and app forced to clock :p daddy's back in charge.

No, you can't get Apple Configurator for Windows, Mac only. You can use the iPhone Configuration Utility though.

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Originally Posted by j224

No, you can't get Apple Configurator for Windows, Mac only. You can use the iPhone Configuration Utility though.

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Sorry, stand corrected :getmecoat: