Airwatch and VPP to Apple schools manager migration

[munkey]

Hi All,

 

I didn't want to hijack the thread similar to this - but we got forced to switch over to apple school manager instead of the legacy VPP site today... and now we have lost all our spare available app licenses and unable to sync any new ones. We use Airwatch MDM to manage our iPads.

 

When Apple Schools manager I hit the move licenses button as per apple support page and renewed the VPP (legacy) token for good measure and synced assets. When re syncing our apps in Airwatch all of our spare purchased licenses has disappeared (I always purchase a few extra just in case). In ASM I can see there are X available but none spare are showing in AW.

 

Any help is appreciated!

 

Thanks

[Brimstone]

You need to download/upload the new token from ASM to your MDM, this is why it can not see your licences as these are synced with Apps and Books

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-school-manager/apd5f5f4d19e/web

[munkey]

Thanks for your reply, I saw that article on the other thread but I failed to see any button to transfer in the details section unless im looking in the wrong place?

 

Here is a screenshot of what I am seeing:

https://imgur.com/LHtSJk4

[Brimstone]

It;s the wrong place, you need to download the content token from ASM and upload to Airwatch....

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-school-manager/apde0f8659ec/web

[munkey]

Getting closer, I tried this and airwatch kicked up the error: Save Failed Uploaded sToken is not the renewed version of the old sToken

 

There is an option to clear the current token but it warns me it will uninstall all assigned applications which is undesirable during term time. It's exact words are "Deleting the sToken will uninstall VPP applications purchased for your VPP account from all assigned devices and revoke the licenses. The applications that have been purchased using the sToken will no longer be available for assignment. Are you sure you want to continue?" - something to raise with Airwatch?

 

Thanks

[Brimstone]

I'd raise a support ticket with Airwatch...

[munkey]

Just though i'd throw an update out there. I ended up raising a ticket to Apple & AirWatch, turns out this is expected behavior and we need to uninstall every single app on every iPad so Apple Schools Manager "absorbs" the spare licenses, then add the new app sync token to AirWatch and re-install every single app again.

 

Given we normally have a 30% failure rate in the uptake of apps from Airwatch resulting in the iPad being factory reset so it sounds like a job for the Christmas holidays to me after i've collected everyone's device in (ouch)

[Brimstone]

Just though i'd throw an update out there. I ended up raising a ticket to Apple & AirWatch, turns out this is expected behavior and we need to uninstall every single app on every iPad so Apple Schools Manager "absorbs" the spare licenses, then add the new app sync token to AirWatch and re-install every single app again.

 

Given we normally have a 30% failure rate in the uptake of apps from Airwatch resulting in the iPad being factory reset so it sounds like a job for the Christmas holidays to me after i've collected everyone's device in (ouch)

That level of failure rate would be unacceptable to me, I’d look at switching to a better MDM. You can revoke all apps by just removing the user based token from VPP.

[Bev]

You shouldn't have to uninstall all your apps just to change the token. Can you create a new token on school.apple.com, add it to Airwatch, and then transfer licenses from one to the other in school.apple.com?

I still have my old VPP token and also a new ASM token setup in Lightspeed. The VPP one has now expired, but I had them both active for a year.

[Brimstone]

Some better MDM's will let you have both the legacy user token and the new location token.

[munkey]

I am told by their support AirWatch can only accept one VPP token. To add the new token means clearing the old one and when I do so it warns all deployed apps will be removed.

 

We had issues when we tried to merge the apps from our two VPP accounts into AW... ended up cutting our losses and just binning one of our VPP accounts.

[Bev]

I am told by their support AirWatch can only accept one VPP token. To add the new token means clearing the old one and when I do so it warns all deployed apps will be removed.

 

We had issues when we tried to merge the apps from our two VPP accounts into AW... ended up cutting our losses and just binning one of our VPP accounts.

 

That's rather frustrating. While it's not ideal, I had 3 setup at one point.

[munkey]

I'd like to move away from Airwatch as iPads are now a bane to manage - Since that's the only MDM i've used I assumed it was "the way it is"

 

Any comments on Lightspeed/Jamf/others?

[Bev]

I've tried loads over the years... (multiple schools)

 

Currently we have most of our iPads on Lightspeed, I don't really like it, it seems very slow and clunky to use and when you send a command to an iPad it takes ages to arrive. I find it quite messy and frustrating to use.

 

I've just started using JAMFSchool and so far I am pretty happy with it, the interface is easy and the commands seem to arrive quickly. I can temporarily disable a profile, or add a single app to an iPad without creating a new group, which I really like, and generally I find it quite easy to use. It also offers a teacher app / parent app, which give them more control at home which I like.

 

Mosyle - I used this just with a class set, and only the free version, but was pretty happy with it. It has an app which allows you to see the location without locking it. I haven't used the users / classes side of things, but for basic management you can't beat free. It has an associated app, so you can see the location of the iPad without lost mode, this is the only one I have seen with this feature.

 

First one I ever used was Meraki, when it was free, we moved away when we went to 1-1 iPads as Lightspeed was recommended but to be honest, I think it was better than Lightspeed and I'm not sure there was any advantage to moving away.

 

 

I am currently on a free trial of JAMFSchool with the intention of moving away from Lightspeed but have discovered that it is more expensive than I initially thought. I am tempted to jump to Mosyle, even the pro version is reasonably priced but I was able to do everything I needed to do with the free version when I used it previously. Depending on how your profiles are setup, it may be a big job to move your existing iPads to a new system as you have to factory reset them in order to remove the old profile.

 

 

You can create an account on Mosyle and just stick one iPad in to see what you think, or get a free trial on the others.

[tmoon-mint]

I'd like to move away from Airwatch as iPads are now a bane to manage - Since that's the only MDM i've used I assumed it was "the way it is"

 

Any comments on Lightspeed/Jamf/others?

 

Would highly recommend Mosyle. If you do go down that route Mosyle Premium is a must for the extra features.

[Brimstone]

I'd like to move away from Airwatch as iPads are now a bane to manage - Since that's the only MDM i've used I assumed it was "the way it is"

 

Any comments on Lightspeed/Jamf/others?

If it's only iOS devices Jamf School does this job better than anyone else, they have some fantasic iOS companion apps that do more than Apple's own Classroom App.

 

I'd definately check out the free trial...

 

https://www.jamf.com/request-trial/jamf-school/

[steveg]

How did this go in the end? I need to do exactly the same thing, since the legacy vpp has been retired now.

[munkey]

Alrighty, so according to Airwatch support I had to add every existing app as a "public" app and assign it to the same groups so they are in parallel with the main app library pulled from ASM. This stops the Airwatch from issuing a remove app command - then we can seamlessly delete the old token and add the new, remove the public apps and supposedly the licences and all that jive will be the same as before the migration.

 

Sounds OK right? But a large number of apps we still use has now been since removed from the app store or replaced with a different identifier so I cannot add them into the public apps section (or re-install them when the tokens swap over). I got a quarter way through and realised i'd have to speak to the departments to find alternatives as there were no like-for-like replacements... and that's as far as I got given everything else that's going on, excuse the rant but I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong but bringing managed iPads into school has been nothing but an absolute pain in the .

[steveg]

Alrighty, so according to Airwatch support I had to add every existing app as a "public" app and assign it to the same groups so they are in parallel with the main app library pulled from ASM. This stops the Airwatch from issuing a remove app command - then we can seamlessly delete the old token and add the new, remove the public apps and supposedly the licences and all that jive will be the same as before the migration.

 

Sounds OK right? But a large number of apps we still use has now been since removed from the app store or replaced with a different identifier so I cannot add them into the public apps section (or re-install them when the tokens swap over). I got a quarter way through and realised i'd have to speak to the departments to find alternatives as there were no like-for-like replacements... and that's as far as I got given everything else that's going on, excuse the rant but I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong but bringing managed iPads into school has been nothing but an absolute pain in the .

 

Well you've really made my weekend! Certainly not going to be a small job then. Most annoying thing is in about a year when airwatch is up for renewal I want to move to something cheaper (and probably better!) and imagine that is going to be as bigger pain.

[Brimstone]

Alrighty, so according to Airwatch support I had to add every existing app as a "public" app and assign it to the same groups so they are in parallel with the main app library pulled from ASM. This stops the Airwatch from issuing a remove app command - then we can seamlessly delete the old token and add the new, remove the public apps and supposedly the licences and all that jive will be the same as before the migration.

 

Sounds OK right? But a large number of apps we still use has now been since removed from the app store or replaced with a different identifier so I cannot add them into the public apps section (or re-install them when the tokens swap over). I got a quarter way through and realised i'd have to speak to the departments to find alternatives as there were no like-for-like replacements... and that's as far as I got given everything else that's going on, excuse the rant but I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong but bringing managed iPads into school has been nothing but an absolute pain in the .

From what you've said it sounds like there was no plan whatsoever about why the school were buying iPads (This is not aimed at you)

 

Filling iPads with various crap free apps that are no longer available now, indicates leadership had;

 

No vision for how the technology was going to be used in the classroom,

No ideas on workflow tools the teachers would use to teach with the iPads, e.g. Google Classroom, Seesaw, Showbie

No thoughts or plan for what would learning look like in the classroom

 

Schools need to plan for technology, whilst it's very difficult to do this at present, planning is an essential part of investing in any technology in schools

[munkey]

Sorry for the dumb question but just so I don't make this mistake again, in practice, how does planning for technology look?

 

At the moment staff request devices, apps and whatever misc tech, if that involves money it needs the seal of approval from SMT, then I go do it. What should happen?

[Brimstone]

Sorry for the dumb question but just so I don't make this mistake again, in practice, how does planning for technology look?

 

At the moment staff request devices, apps and whatever misc tech, if that involves money it needs the seal of approval from SMT, then I go do it. What should happen?

Here's a good example....(current circumstances mean this may be not possible at present)

 

I was recently engaged with a trust who were looking to invest in technology for a 1:1 program.

 

They were looking at either Chromebooks or iPads. We I came to see them I was expecting a deep discussion about learning, teaching, what their vision for learning looked like. Instead all they wanted to talk about was the specs of iPads against Chromebooks without even considering a first few simple questions....

 

Why are buying these...?

How does our vision for learning link to the technology? It's worth remembering that technology is there to enhance and support the learning experience for students.

What impact to do we want to make on teaching and learning by investing in technology...? Schools need to look at their SIP development plan

How do we upskill teachers who will delivering the learning? How will regular CPD for our teachers help them deliver innovative lessons using the devices, what workflow tools do they need e.g. G Suite, MS365, Seesaw, Showbie, Google Classroom. Which apps can deliver assignments to allow teachers to mark work digitally and save huge amounts on teacher workloads and printing costs. Schools need to understand a small suite of cross curricular apps that do this well and provide teaching consistancy is always going to better than just flooding iPads with various apps

Do you we have the infastructure for mobile learning?

 

Needless to say this trust now understood the questions they needed answers for and are successfully rolling out iPads and very successfully running remote learning across every year group.

[steveg]

Finally done this, and actually seems to have gone quite smoothly.

 

I followed the guide here https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2960505?lang=en_US created a new location, imported the vpp account, then uploaded the certificate to airwatch and all seems well!