[ipad] Multiple Site iPad Managment

[madurham]

We are looking for a set of tools that we can use to deploy apps to iPads across three different schools and I've got myself pretty confused.

 

What we would prefererably have is:-

- A way to push apps and configuration profiles to a set of iPads at one school without the need to go there.

- Deploy apps silently. (Am I right in thinking that this isn't possible with a 3rd party MDM solution?)

- Revoke and redeploy paid apps that are already installed on iPads. (I think this is only possible with the Apple solution)

- Manage different sets of apps and profiles for three schools in one interface.

- Free. (If we were to pay we would go with Lightspeed as we already have filtering through them)

- Avoid having to buy a Macbook to take to other sites.

 

I was looking at Meraki becasue it's free and cloud based but is there a better option for us.

 

Is it possible to create one VPP Apple ID for multiple schools or will I need to juggle 3 VPPs?

[zag]

Thats quite a wishlist!

 

Meraki is what you are looking for.

[Sylv3r]

As i've said in another post.

 

Air-watch will do what your after other than it not been free.

[Stevecee]

Yes Meraki will do this, although MDM needs individual Apple IDs for each iPad!

 

Steve

[Brimstone]

We are looking for a set of tools that we can use to deploy apps to iPads across three different schools and I've got myself pretty confused.

 

What we would prefererably have is:-

- A way to push apps and configuration profiles to a set of iPads at one school without the need to go there.

- Deploy apps silently. (Am I right in thinking that this isn't possible with a 3rd party MDM solution?)

- Revoke and redeploy paid apps that are already installed on iPads. (I think this is only possible with the Apple solution)

- Manage different sets of apps and profiles for three schools in one interface.

- Free. (If we were to pay we would go with Lightspeed as we already have filtering through them)

- Avoid having to buy a Macbook to take to other sites.

 

I was looking at Meraki becasue it's free and cloud based but is there a better option for us.

 

Is it possible to create one VPP Apple ID for multiple schools or will I need to juggle 3 VPPs?

 

Although paid for Lightspeed is your best option here, it is already set up for multi school environments

[Marshall_IT]

Air watch will do all this.

 

You should be able to have 1 vpp Id and just assign apps to each ou / school.

 

I think you'll struggle to get this all for free.

 

One more now, all mdms can push apps silently as long s the ipad is supervised first. AFAIK.

[madurham]

Thanks for the helpful replies.

 

I never expected to get everything for free but you can't blame me for wishful thinking.

 

Just to clarify, am I right in saying that using Configurator to prepare* and supervise all the iPads first then after that Apps can be added and pushed out through a cloud based MDM silently without needing to use configurator again?

 

*Including enrollment into MDM.

[SovietRussia]

Thanks for the helpful replies.

 

I never expected to get everything for free but you can't blame me for wishful thinking.

 

Just to clarify, am I right in saying that using Configurator to prepare* and supervise all the iPads first then after that Apps can be added and pushed out through a cloud based MDM silently without needing to use configurator again?

 

*Including enrollment into MDM.

 

You are correct, iOS 7 brought super-silent MDM push to supervised and trusted MDMs (Meaning the Trust Certificate MUST be installed) where as before iOS 7, you had to use OS X Profile Manager to push silently.

 

Also in response to someone above who said give each iPad an Apple ID - Don't do this! Create 3 Apple IDs for your 3 sites and sign in all the iPads on the site with the site specific Apple ID. You can have an unlimited amount of devices on one Apple ID but I would make one per site to make your life easier.

 

As you are using VPP, you will need to create an extra 2 VPP accounts (one per site - If the site names are different).

 

-- EDIT

 

As you are using Meraki, you can setup some different profile tags to get you going so create 3 tags with your site names, then tag the devices at each site meaning you can push an entire App only to the one site not to all three - Might make it easier for granularity control (You can even tag them further such as Subject)

Edited April 2, 2014 by SovietRussia

[Marshall_IT]

As you are using VPP, you will need to create an extra 2 VPP accounts (one per site - If the site names are different).

)

 

Do this and ignore what I said before... Upon looking again we do something similar.

[madurham]

You are correct, iOS 7 brought super-silent MDM push to supervised and trusted MDMs (Meaning the Trust Certificate MUST be installed) where as before iOS 7, you had to use OS X Profile Manager to push silently.

 

Also in response to someone above who said give each iPad an Apple ID - Don't do this! Create 3 Apple IDs for your 3 sites and sign in all the iPads on the site with the site specific Apple ID. You can have an unlimited amount of devices on one Apple ID but I would make one per site to make your life easier.

 

As you are using VPP, you will need to create an extra 2 VPP accounts (one per site - If the site names are different).

 

-- EDIT

 

As you are using Meraki, you can setup some different profile tags to get you going so create 3 tags with your site names, then tag the devices at each site meaning you can push an entire App only to the one site not to all three - Might make it easier for granularity control (You can even tag them further such as Subject)

 

I have a plan and my head hurts a little less now, thanks.

 

Does Meraki support multiple VPP accounts? Or will I have to sign up to Meraki three times?

[Brimstone]

You are correct, iOS 7 brought super-silent MDM push to supervised and trusted MDMs (Meaning the Trust Certificate MUST be installed) where as before iOS 7, you had to use OS X Profile Manager to push silently.

 

Also in response to someone above who said give each iPad an Apple ID - Don't do this! Create 3 Apple IDs for your 3 sites and sign in all the iPads on the site with the site specific Apple ID. You can have an unlimited amount of devices on one Apple ID but I would make one per site to make your life easier.

 

As you are using VPP, you will need to create an extra 2 VPP accounts (one per site - If the site names are different).

 

-- EDIT

 

As you are using Meraki, you can setup some different profile tags to get you going so create 3 tags with your site names, then tag the devices at each site meaning you can push an entire App only to the one site not to all three - Might make it easier for granularity control (You can even tag them further such as Subject)

 

Using one Apple ID for all 3 sites will give you soooo many problems when scaling iPads, I've had so many schools get into such a mess by trying to get around creating unique Apple ID's, this is completely unsupported by Apple so don't expect help from them when you have a problem

@SovietRussia how are you proposing the OP downloads 3 separate tokens for each VPP account to then link with one Meraki Dashboard?

[madurham]

I've just set up a Meraki account for one of the primaries. You can create networks once logged in. Is it possible to create these multiple networks and add separate VPP accounts and apple certs to each one? Or will each network use the original VPP and cert settings?

[Brimstone]

As VPP makes a connection to each instance of Meraki dashboard when to download the token you will need a separate account for each school.