jgmitchell Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 I have a newly set up Apple server running on a Mac Mini that is managing 10 Mac minis and 1 iPad as a test to move away from meraki. For some reason when apps are pushed to the iPad, 30 will succeed, and 13 will fail. I have no idea why this happens as we have enough free licenses for the apps and storage capacity on the iPad. Has anyone run into this issue before?
Brimstone Posted February 10, 2016 Posted February 10, 2016 Your really moving away from Meraki to Profile Manager......? Best of luck with that, Profile Manager is the PITA of MDM's
pixellip Posted February 11, 2016 Posted February 11, 2016 Would you care to elaborate on that Brimstone? Only I was thinking of doing the same thing myself. Meraki is ok but I find it a bit confusing......I'm not sure if the 'put a password in on installing an app' has been cured yet..... The trouble is once you start up with one system moving over to something else seems a big struggle. What do you use Brimstone? jgmitchell: May I ask why you are moving off Meraki? .....just interested.
jgmitchell Posted February 11, 2016 Author Posted February 11, 2016 pixellip, we thought about moving away as we already have an Apple server which we have just set up to manage our Macs. We were having issues with Meraki where we would assign apps from the VPP to ipads, but they would not install them. We would have to manually go into the purchased section of the App store on each iPad and download each app, entering the password each time... Now they have been enrolled onto the Apple server they now get Apps pushed to them, but we have to press "Install" on a pop up that appears for each app, (I'm trying to find a way to get them to be completely silent installations.) Annoying, but a lot better than manually having to find the app and enter the apple ID password for each App.
pixellip Posted February 11, 2016 Posted February 11, 2016 Thanks jgmitchell. We are in the same boat as you. Exactly the same issue with Meraki. It seems to install some but not others so you have to grab the Ipad ( which is a PITA) . We have a mac mini server here so I might give it a go....I was just wondering if we needed to change something with our purchased apps already...... Did you give each Ipad a separate Apple ID? Anyway sorry I don't want to hijack your thread for some technical help!....I am going to have to do the same as you though in the coming days
jgmitchell Posted February 11, 2016 Author Posted February 11, 2016 We purchase our apps for deployment through the Apple VPP. We can then assign these apps to iPads individually or to groups. All of our iPads have individual Apple IDs but the apps themselves are purchased and deployed from the VPP.
pixellip Posted February 11, 2016 Posted February 11, 2016 Ahh thanks. That's what we have done so far (purchases Apps via VPP/ individual itunes accounts for each Ipad)......so at least we can move over to an Apple Server like you have without too much fuss.....I am reading up about it now ( DEP and MDM ).... It's interesting your experiences with Meraki.....anyway let's hope someone can help you out with a solution to your current woes. I am bound to end up experiencing the same issues!
Brimstone Posted February 11, 2016 Posted February 11, 2016 So....... Both of you are doing things the right way, and I imagine gone through some major headaches in getting Apple ID's created for each iPad. In order to do silent installs of apps, the process is as follows.. Unique Apple ID on each iPad, Enroll into MDM (Be it Meraki or other MDM) Once you can see users of these iPads (You must have users created in the MDM for it to work) you then send out an invite to them for managed distribution. They all accept the invite, you can check this they have done this in the MDM. Change restrictions in the profile to turn off "allow account modifications" to users signed in can not sign out. Now push apps to devices silently. Being able to push apps out to devices is also dependent on making sure ports are opened on your firewall to fully allow access to Apple's APN Servers, the general rule is make sure the entire 17.0.0.0/8 address block is opened as this is assigned solely to Apple. As for profile manager here are some woes of people using it for managing iPads, I had one customer have to reset his profile manager database 8 times before he ditched it for something better. https://discussions.apple.com/community/servers_enterprise_software/os_x_server
jgmitchell Posted February 12, 2016 Author Posted February 12, 2016 I've got the iPads to receive apps that I assign to their group but they're not installing silently and a pop up appears for each app with an install button that needs to be pressed. Musch better than our old method, but still slightly annoying.
pixellip Posted February 12, 2016 Posted February 12, 2016 Very interesting...... I wonder what he bought....i.e. 'something better'. I've heard Profile Manager is a bit buggy but not sure yet as I've not tried it out. JGMitchell: I agree - it's not so bad users having to click 'Install'. Sometimes I find one needs to be able (or wants to ) remote straight onto the Ipad to look at settings.....rather than ask someone for their Ipad.... Anyway I will get stuck in soon and give it a go like jgmitchell.....
RLR Posted February 12, 2016 Posted February 12, 2016 I went to an apple event last week and got to meet all the Apple Education reps. They said themselves not to use profile manager and go with any other MDM.
Brimstone Posted February 12, 2016 Posted February 12, 2016 Very interesting...... I wonder what he bought....i.e. 'something better'. I've heard Profile Manager is a bit buggy but not sure yet as I've not tried it out. JGMitchell: I agree - it's not so bad users having to click 'Install'. Sometimes I find one needs to be able (or wants to ) remote straight onto the Ipad to look at settings.....rather than ask someone for their Ipad.... Anyway I will get stuck in soon and give it a go like jgmitchell..... They went with Casper Suite, far more powerful and easier to manage.....
Brimstone Posted February 12, 2016 Posted February 12, 2016 I went to an apple event last week and got to meet all the Apple Education reps. They said themselves not to use profile manager and go with any other MDM. In the words of Apple's most senior engineer in the UK "Profile Manager is just an MDM Proof of concept"
pixellip Posted February 16, 2016 Posted February 16, 2016 How are you getting on JGMitchell.....just interested ! Did you manage to get all your apps pushed out to your Ipads?
jgmitchell Posted February 16, 2016 Author Posted February 16, 2016 It seems to be working pretty well. Apps that are missed or previously failed seem to retry again later and successfully install. Still annoying that i can't seem to work out how to lock down the settings to stop students changing wallpapers, setting pass-codes etc.. And having to press install for each app is a bit of a pain. I've seen people use Apple Configurator 2, but i cant see the point in it as i can deploy apps through the server.
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