Apple ID best practices

[CharlieRich]

Hi All,

 

We have a bank of 16 iPad Airs (iOS 8.1.1) that we are looking to deploy as a bookable resource for Staff to loan out for lessons.

 

Also we have 10 dedicated devices being used by our SLT for reporting, meeting notes etc.

 

We are using AirWatch as our MDM solution

 

We build all of our iPads through Apple Configurator. The process is as follows:

• Connect iPad to Mac and wipe (if it has been previously used)
  
• Turn on Supervision and name the device
  
• Update iOS if necessary
  
• Let AC do its thing restoring the device
  
• Tick to install the wifi profile (contains proxy address)
  

 

We then run through the initial setup screens on the iPad, enabling Location Services (AirWatch requires it) disabling iCloud, signing in with the SINGLE Apple ID until we land on the home screen.

 

Then I go to Settings and check in the App Store tab that we are still signed in (sometimes this logs out - very annoying!)

 

We open the AirWatch app and run through the enrollment process, this then dumps the device in the console and we can manage it from the web page.

 

A couple of questions we have are:

• When we build a new device, all of the other devices that have previously been built get an on-screen prompt saying "this Apple ID is now being used for FaceTime etc on a new iPad". Obviously this isn't ideal as they are usually being used by Students.
  
• When rolling out Apps from AirWatch, our users are intermittantly prompted to sign into the App store on the devices (yes we are signed into the App Store/iTunes on the Mac we are using) WHY?!
  
• Is it better to create a single Apple ID to use on all devices or to create multiple ID's for each device? I have tested this briefly, creating iPad01@..., iPad02@... but we are now getting a "sign into the App Store" prompt that literally appears every 2 seconds on the devices that makes it impossible to use the device!
  
• We have a VPP account configured to our MAIN APPLE ID (the one we currently use for all of our devices, this works fine. What would the process involve if we wanted to create an Apple ID for every device, would we need to associate all of these to the existing VPP account?
  
• Does anyone have any experience with this kind of implementation using AirWatch? Don't want to offend anyone but their support is usually from overseas and English doesn't seem to be their technicians first language!
  

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Sylv3r]

Hi

 

We use Airwatch too, when it works it's excellent although the questions you ask we suffer from too. Not sure if it's just an air watch thing or if it happens to all MDM's.

[week2014]

Hi

 

We use Airwatch too, when it works it's excellent although the questions you ask we suffer from too. Not sure if it's just an air watch thing or if it happens to all MDM's.

 

Using Airwatch and Bushel. You have to tap to install the apps on both unless the devices are supervised. Then you can skip that tapping.

[Edu-IT]

I'd use an account per iPad if you want to use VPP effectively.

[eshaq786]

I am in the same boat as you OP. I have tested with Meraki and Lightspeed MDM. My workflow is as follows:

 

Supervise with Apple Configurator(AC).

Set a default profile on AC to restrict facetime, imessage, etc as this profile cannot be removed.

We use a preconfigured image that has no Apps preinstalled but has icloud and itunes configured using a single Apple ID.

Once they are in Supervised mode, I open the iPad and enter the password for icloud when prompted. This registers it with icloud ensuring that find my ipad works properly which is crucial to us.

I then add the Lightspeed profile on the supervise tab of AC and refresh the device. The lightspeed profile has even further restrictions to ensure accounts cannot be modified and to force user to enter a password for every app purchase plus many other settings.

 

Where we differ is we have a seperate VPP account. We purchase apps (you still need to purchase free apps for £0.00) and have linked it into our Lightspeed account. It pulls across all the purchased licences which are then pushed out to enrolled devices. It appears to work for free Apps. However I have not had a chance to purchase paid Apps to see if it will work.