Managing 100+ iPads in a 3rd World Country

[BFish]

Hello fellow educators & IT geeks,

 

I'm somewhat at a lost right now on how to handle this and Apple's response was...unrealistic. I currently manage an international school's IT system and am working on the budget for next school year. Our school currently has:

70 Student iPads

30 Teacher iPads

 

We use an MDM solution called Manage Engine, which is fantastic. The big problem is: the country the school resides in is not currently available for Apple's VPP & Apple School Manager program. Our MDM solution requires that component in order to automatically push out Apps (Free or Paid)... It's great for locking an iPad down and keeping it from a student destroying it but as the school continues to purchase more iPads I need to figure out a way to get these things updated.

 

So we are essentially running around to each and every iPad in order to install a new App, Delete, or Update. Does anyone have any solutions or ideas on how to push out Apps automatically? Apple having the country I reside in not available for Apple School Manager (which makes no sense for the record)... has me at a lost on how to handle this.

[Joanne]

Have you tried using Apple Configurator with a normal iTunes account?

 

You might have to do what I used to do and buy iTunes cards, add to school iTunes account and then have all the iPads on the same account and then set them to auto download apps. When you purchase an app on one, it should then install on the others. This isn't an ideal situation though.

[BFish]

That is apparently what the school has done in the past two years; however, this year it has completely stopped working. I'm not sure if it's because we have over 100 iPads associated to only 3 iTunes Accounts or if Apple has recently made changes to iTunes or iOS. Either way, we are stuck.

[vijaa]

Hi BFish,

 

I'm ManageEngine MDM and I happened to see your forum post this morning. I checked up with my team if we could make things simpler for your with Apple VPP and School Manager. And, it looks like we can!

 

Please get in touch with our support so we can sort things out quickly for you!

 

Here's the email mdm-support at manageengine dot com (I wasn't able to type it out!)

 

Thank you so much for using our product and giving us a good word.

 

Best,

Vij