Apple Classroom and Meraki MDM

[DavR]

So, with the last few days of the summer break, I thought I'd have another bash at configuring Apple Classroom app through Meraki. Still no joy, but as it's not documented properly anywhere, I thought I'd share what I have learnt.

 

1. You will need to update your Deployment Program to Apple School Manager

2. In Apple School Manager, you need to define classes with teacher and student users

3. In Meraki, these users need to be imported under Systems Manager | Configure | Owners > Sync ASM

4. The teacher device for your class would appear to need to be assigned to its teacher owner under the Owners tab

5. Create a profile for your Classroom, or amend an existing profile

6. Add setting > More iOS > Education (Beta)

7. In your Education profile:

a. Tick ASM to get users imported from ASM

b. Import groups from ASM to get your classes

c. Device Groups and Departments are optional

8. Using whatever distribution method, deploy Apple Classroom to necessary devices

9. Bluetooth should be turned on for all devices

 

And that's as far as I got with it. The Education profile installed on my student devices, but failed to install on my teacher device with the error "A user with the identifier “(teacher's Apple ID)" could not be found". Might be because I was using generic "A Teacher" and "A Student" logons in my class, I don't know.

 

This is the only documentation I have found so far - https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Profiles_and_Settings/Configuring_an_Education_Payload_for_Apple_Classroom.

 

I'm giving up on this one for now, might come back to it another time, but just thought I'd share as far as I got for anyone else trying to puzzle this out.

[Katalyst]

Hi Dave,

 

I'm looking at implementing Apple Classroom across nearly 200 iPads in and trying to manage it all through Meraki. So far not having much luck. Did you ever come back to the issue and resolve it?

[DavR]

Hi @Katalyst,

 

No, sorry - this was as far as I got, and abandoned the project. At most all I wanted was to give teachers remote control functionality over an iPad class, frankly it wasn't worth dumping any more time into.

 

Best of luck with your deployment, I don't know if there is anyone else on here with a success story, hopefully if there is someone will pop up!

[Brimstone]

I have loads of schools who have successfully deployed Apple Classroom, one of them have just completed every class in school, all 28 of them.

 

Importantly they are not using Meraki but a far superior MDM, Casper Suite, I've also seen this working with Zulu Desk another great MDM.

 

This has been possible without upgrading to ASM or creating any classes within ASM to then sync with the MDM, all students devices require supervision and EDU Profile, whilst teacher devices only require EDU Profile.

 

If you have hundreds of iPads maybe you need a paid for MDM that works properly?

[DavR]

Not a very helpful response Brimstone!

 

Meraki has done most of the things I've asked it to do (and for my usage, free), it's just this Classroom business that has been fairly rubbish. Worth noting it is still officially still a Beta feature in Meraki.

[Brimstone]

Not a very helpful response Brimstone!

 

Meraki has done most of the things I've asked it to do (and for my usage, free), it's just this Classroom business that has been fairly rubbish. Worth noting it is still officially still a Beta feature in Meraki.

 

Hi Dave,

 

There may be a fix for you...

 

 

As ASM is still in beta try creating the classes manually rather than syncing with ASM, I would just try with one teacher iPad and one students one.

[DavR]

I have seen that video before, but yeah, quite useful

 

I'm not pursuing Apple Classroom any further, but @Katalyst may find it helpful...