Lightspeed MDM and Apple Classroom

[simpsonj]

We're on the Mobile Manager preview for support with Apple Classroom, but despite my best efforts, I can't get it working...

 

Anyone managed to get Lightspeed and Apple Classroom to play nice?

[jon_sco]

We have the same problem, did you get anywhere with this?

[simpsonj]

After an afternoon of I haven't looked at it since. Lightspeed support haven't exactly been supportive on this either, which is unusual as they've been pretty good upto this point.

 

Not been impressed with Lightspeed for MDM at all so far.

[redspecial2000]

We've got it working with Lightspeed, but not on our wireless network. Works fine on broadband hub/router, works fine on 4G modem, just wont see devices on the network. jon_sco is investigating....

 

 

How far have you got with it? Does the Classroom app open on the teacher device?

[simpsonj]

No, the classroom app complains it doesn't have the right configuration. I can see the Classroom certificates have installed under the Lightspeed profile on staff devices, but I'm not sure how to troubleshoot from there.

[simpsonj]

These are the stages I've gone through so far:

 

Enabled Apple Classroom at the top level and on all groups

Created a staff user, and made it an admin of the student groups (and an admin of staff groups for good measure)

Assigned the iPad to that member of staff

Created a student user

Assigned an iPad to the student user

Resynced Apple Classroom on the groups, and resynced the staff iPad.

[redspecial2000]

There's a bug in the preview version....

 

go into: https://launch.lightspeedsystems.com/users/sign_in and sign into your establishment.

Go to Admin tools and select Groups

In the search bar, find the group you've created for Classroom and click on it to see the members

Check that the teacher is there as a member. If not, add them

Then make sure that they have the word Admin beside them. If not, click on the drop down to the right of their name and make them admin of the group

 

Re-sync classroom and make sure it is enabled in settings are the group level in Lightspeed.

[redspecial2000]

Should look like this when you're done:

 

 

Also, make sure that you've deployed the classroom app to all of the devices in the class, not just the teacher device. It won't show up on the pupil devices, but it will roll out config and member certificate details.

[simpsonj]

Progress! Thanks for that @redspecial2000 I've now got the teacher app working. Definitely feel that I've missed out on some training somewhere along the line as I'd never seen the admin tools part before! Going to either have to remake my groups using that, or maybe make my existing groups into sub groups...

 

Still, definitely further along than I was, and got some testing to do

[redspecial2000]

Excellent- can you let me know if the Classroom app manages to control the pupil devices on your wireless setup? This is the issue we're wrestling with. All fine on wifi hubs, but not on our Cisco network, even though peer to peer is enabled.

[simpsonj]

Will do Getting the hang of how Lightspeed works. Just updating the student devices to 9.3.5 so that Classroom will install...

[simpsonj]

Can't get the Classroom app to install on the student iPads. Just sat in Missing Apps... Or it is installed, and I've got the same problem you have and the two iPads won't talk to each other over wireless.

[redspecial2000]

yes, it should show as missing, as it doesn't actually deploy the full app.

 

On the device itself, go into:

Settings > General > Profile and Device Management > Lightspeed MDM Profile > More Details

The student devices should have a certificate called Member Identity and the Staff device should have a certificate called Leader Identity

 

If this is the case, then all is good...

 

Can you use a phone as a 4G hotspot and attach the devices to it to test?

[simpsonj]

Cool, so I'm not totally off base. I do wish the Lightspeed instructions had been a bit more informative, you've been far more helpful!

 

Sadly our network coverage is appalling, so no 4G for me. I might try taking them home tonight to see if I can get them working over the holidays. It was my understanding that they were meant to talk to each other using Bluetooth?

 

I'll see if our Wifi (Aerohive) is blocking anything it shouldn't be. The lack of information from the iPads makes troubleshooting so difficult...

[redspecial2000]

Although they use Airdrop (make sure it's enabled on all the devices) there does seem to be some form of communication peer to peer too as an initial check. I suspect the certificate identity might be part of this check. When it works, it's great.

 

I learned all of this from Airwatch support- they were great when I dropped a case into them. Maybe a lack of consistency in their support team. I've also got an enquiry sitting with Apple just now to try to get more detail about how well this plays on Cisco Wireless controlled kit. @jon_sco has some Aerohive kit that we're going to try another test on, to see if it's a particular issue with Cisco.

[simpsonj]

I can confirm it all works with Aerohive. Once I removed all the firewalls on the iPad SSID and subnet, the Staff iPad picked up the Student iPad straight away.

[redspecial2000]

What a great way to end a week!

[redspecial2000]

@jon_scot has had some progress.... So good news here too!

[simpsonj]

Glad to hear it

 

One question, is there a quick way to assign iPads to students? I've having to manually go into each student and assign them an iPad, which is a bit time consuming when I've got another 64 or so to go through!

 

I want to like the Lightspeed MDM kit, but some of the design decisions leave me baffled...

[simpsonj]

So some iPads pick up the settings no problem, and some don't.

 

No way of checking on Lightspeed whether it's going to work or not.

Have to manually check the iPads for the profiles.

No real troubleshooting steps to try to get it to work.

Same settings applied to all iPads on Lightspeed, different results across different iPads.

 

Have you had any joy with rolling out Apple Classroom?

[simpsonj]

Just to rectify my own points. It IS possible to see whether the profile has been installed using Lightspeed (Click on Device, then profiles tab). But I'm getting iPads that are being obstinate about installing the required profile, no error messages or log to work with... So annoying that it works on some iPads, but not on others, and the settings are identical.

[Lydecker]

 

I want to like the Lightspeed MDM kit, but some of the design decisions leave me baffled...

 

I can not re-stress this valid point enough!

[Planehazza]

SOrry, I know this is an old thread, but any ideas why Home > Device Management > Apple Classroom > Enable Classroom can be ticked, but the Save button will not let me click it?

[Zbd]

SOrry, I know this is an old thread, but any ideas why Home > Device Management > Apple Classroom > Enable Classroom can be ticked, but the Save button will not let me click it?

How far down in the group tree are you? How many members of the Group/Class is there? do you have any teachers assigned in the membership list?

 

I had to have teachers as members of the group when I managed to get Apple Classroom working with lightspeed. Was always hit and miss if the student device would show up though.