Advice needed Apple School Manager, Meraki MDM or ZuluDesk

[sarahstacey]

Hi,

 

I need some advice about how to move forward with our iPad deployment.

 

We currently have under 100 iPads and I use Meraki MDM (Legacy) with DEP and VPP for management and rolling out apps. This has worked pretty well but has been time consuming setting up.

 

We have now purchased more iPads which will take us over the 100 (paid for Meraki) limit .

 

I have been recommended to switch to ZuluDesk as Apple School Manager will work with this and it's considerably cheaper than upgrading to the paid for Meraki.

 

From what I understand Apple School Manager will do away with the need for apple id's which would be great and offer us greater control and functionality.

 

So what i'm asking is should I carry on with our Legacy Meraki MDM which will work but has no support and limited functionality or move to ZuluDesk. I think paying for Meraki would be out of the question financially.

 

Is Apple School Manager worth the move and has anyone been using ZuluDesk?

 

Many thanks in advance for any advice, I'm feeling a little lost!

[Blue_Cookeh]

You don't need Apple IDs if you're supervising and using an MDM anyway, just food for thought.

 

Also School Manager requires the newer iPads (Air/Air 2 I believe, possibly some of the minis) and a recommended 32GB storage option or more.

[Brimstone]

You don't need Apple IDs if you're supervising and using an MDM anyway, just food for thought.

 

Also School Manager requires the newer iPads (Air/Air 2 I believe, possibly some of the minis) and a recommended 32GB storage option or more.

 

Apple School Manager has NO minimum iPad specs whatsoever, ASM is replacing your existing login for deploy.apple.com, you are confusing this with Shared iPad.

 

It's the portal to do the following..

 

Buy content VPP apps and books,

Manage Devices (DEP)

Manage people, thats's admins, teachers, bursars and students

Managed Apple ID's

 

Managed Apple ID's are NOT used for app distrbution, only Shared iPad and iTunes U. You would use device assignment as long as you have shared iPads, if you are 1:1 Apple ID's should really still be used.

 

ZuluDesk whilst one of the newer more powerful MDM's that already support Apple School Manager, Shared iPad and Apple Classroom have no base in the UK at present, there are some resellers in early days with this MDM.

 

Another very powerful MDM with support for the new features, a base in the UK and lots of school users already is Casper Suite from JAMF, I would definately check them out.

 

Both these can sync in the background with Apple School Manager, you create the structure, classes, teachers etc in Apple School Manager which syncs in the background with the MDM, so I would definately ditch the legacy Meraki which does not have these new features.

[sarahstacey]

Thanks for your help so I can sign up to ASM now anyway it's just that I won't be able to use all the features depending on which MDM I'm using.

I'll have a look at Casper Suite, I need to make a decision soon but I don't want to rush into something and regret it later.

[Brimstone]

@sarahstacey

 

Yes if you signed up for VPP and DEP using deploy.apple.com originally you can sign in again right now and you're likely to get a pop up box appear asking you to upgrade, which is the easier upgrade path.

 

If you decide to change your MDM later just remember you will have to delete the VPP token from Meraki and DEP Certs from Apple School Manager and Meraki before you configure the new MDM.

 

Both Casper and Zuludesk have free trials to test these..

 

https://www.jamfsoftware.com/request-trial/

https://zuludesk.com/trial/

[Blue_Cookeh]

Apple School Manager has NO minimum iPad specs whatsoever, ASM is replacing your existing login for deploy.apple.com, you are confusing this with Shared iPad.

 

You are indeed correct, I had it confused with the new Classroom app

[Brimstone]

You are indeed correct, I had it confused with the new Classroom app

 

 

You still seem to be confused as the Apple Classroom App does not require a 32GB iPad Air/Air 2 either, it only requires an iPad 3rd Gen or higher. Some of the controls within Apple Classroom such as assign, log out and password reset in the App only apply to using Shared iPad which does require iPad Pro 32GB, iPad Air 2 64GB or iPad Mini 4 64GB.