Jamf Users - Persuade/Dissuade Me?

[JRA]

Hello everyone.

 

Just if anyone's passing with a few minutes and uses Jamf to manage their iPads, how has it been? In and out of the classroom? Do teachers like or hate it/bits of it? Do you like or hate it?

 

Thinking I'm pretty much going that way and if I'm in for some golden years or in for any pitfalls I'd love to hear how it is out in the wild.

 

Thanks all.

[1TF0rward]

Hi,

 

So i've been through a few different MDM's and was skeptical when I first was introduced to Jamf, I was assured that I would love it and will never go back.

 

Oh boy were they right! Honestly, I've not had any issues with Jamf. It's very easy to get to the grips with it, there is even a free course which goes through the basics which helped massively. (https://www.jamf.com/training/online-training/100/)

 

It is used in quite a few schools I manage and forever trying to move new schools to Jamf from MDM's like Lightspeed and Meraki. Staff find it very easy to use once shown the ropes. If you are planning on using Apple Classroom, it just works! It's very responsive and quick to get updates, deploy apps and setup the MDM.

 

Hope you make the right choice

[2ilent8cho]

Since 2012 I've used Apples Profile Manager on a Mac Mini, moved to Lightspeed MDM , then JAMF. JAMF is the best I've used, we manage 2100 iPads and 450 Mac's with it. JAMF is also what Apple use themselves (or at least did) in the Apple Stores.

[Dan2025]

I would recommend JAMF,

 

Mosyle might be an alternative especially if you can make the free version meet your needs.

 

I've used both & I prefer Jamf overall.

[Brimstone]

I think if you wanted an endorsment, this may well do it...400,000 iPads deployed in 2 months

 

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3675332/how-taiwan-deployed-400000-ipads-in-a-few-weeks.html

[Zbd]

One thing to be aware of is that JAMF has two flavours, JAMF School & JAMF pro. Some apps only work with one and not the other. We are on JAMF school (coming from Lightspeed - wouldn't go back) and we were looking to try the Set/Reset apps as our Sixth formers keep forgetting their 4 passcodes however it doesn't work with JAMF school. But JAMF school does have Lifetime licences, I don't know if JAMF pro offers this but I suspect not as its more for corporations. Also I find it harder to find information on JAMF school as most of the info out there seems to be for JAMF Pro.

[DGardiner]

Jamf pro here, i wont be switching any time soon. Had lightspeed, moysle, meraki.

 

Cloud hosted and weve never had any issues, the onboarding training is intense and confusing but really gets you off on a good footing.

 

never used jamf school however

[Brimstone]

One thing to be aware of is that JAMF has two flavours, JAMF School & JAMF pro. Some apps only work with one and not the other. We are on JAMF school (coming from Lightspeed - wouldn't go back) and we were looking to try the Set/Reset apps as our Sixth formers keep forgetting their 4 passcodes however it doesn't work with JAMF school. But JAMF school does have Lifetime licences, I don't know if JAMF pro offers this but I suspect not as its more for corporations. Also I find it harder to find information on JAMF school as most of the info out there seems to be for JAMF Pro.

To clarify, there are some features (not apps) in Jamf Pro that you don't get with Jamf School. Jamf Pro is designed to manage and deploy macOS and iOS devices. Jamf School only has basic features for macOS anything more complex e.g. Printer scripting, building Adobe or Sibellius pkg's it can not do. Jamf School DOES NOT HAVE LIFETIME LICENCE these are device life licences, if that device fails or gets broken you have to buy another licence.

 

Devices that are not connected to WiFi and a user forgets or tries to enter their passcode too many times has always been an issue, no MDM can solve this as the iPad in not connected to the wifi. The solution is to have a lighting to ethernet dongle which then allows you to connect the iPad to the network so you can clear the passocde from Jamf.

 

As for not being able to find support info below is the admin guide, I would strongly suggest also joining Jamf Nation which is the largest macOS and iOS support community in the world.

 

https://docs.jamf.com/jamf-school/documentation/Jamf_School_Documentation.html

 

https://community.jamf.com/

[simonw]

I really like JAMF School. It's easy to get to grips with. Have tried Mosyle and Meraki but JAMF School kicks them out the park.

[Zbd]

Hi thanks for that. Its their shared iPad passcodes that they forget, not 1-2-1 devices. The JAMF setup/reset option looked good as it would allow them to have a clean iPad each time it gets used so they can sign into Google etc without having to remember their shared iPad passcode, which is our current setup.

 

I'm a member of JAMF nation however there are over 40,000 posts on JAMF pro but only 367 on JAMF school, so it's a path less travelled, which was my point that there's less reference material to search for your answer.

[DGardiner]

Hi thanks for that. Its their shared iPad passcodes that they forget, not 1-2-1 devices. The JAMF setup/reset option looked good as it would allow them to have a clean iPad each time it gets used so they can sign into Google etc without having to remember their shared iPad passcode, which is our current setup.

 

I'm a member of JAMF nation however there are over 40,000 posts on JAMF pro but only 367 on JAMF school, so it's a path less travelled, which was my point that there's less reference material to search for your answer.

 

if you deploy the apple classroom apps to staff, and have configured the classes/teachers with the right access levels they can reset the pupils passwords using the classroom app in a couple of clicks.

 

as well as getting the class management tools also within though you need a sync tool to make this as hands off as possible

[Brimstone]

if you deploy the apple classroom apps to staff, and have configured the classes/teachers with the right access levels they can reset the pupils passwords using the classroom app in a couple of clicks.

 

as well as getting the class management tools also within though you need a sync tool to make this as hands off as possible

 

Here’s how you configure Apple Classroom….

 

https://docs.jamf.com/jamf-school/documentation/Classroom_App_Distribution_to_Teachers.html

[Bev]

I've used Lightspeed, Mosyle, Meraki, and am now using JAMF School.

 

We moved away from Lightspeed as I found it very unwieldy and slow. JAMF School works great for us. The teachers don't really have an opinion on it as they don't need to get involved with it at all.

There is a teacher app which would allow them to lock / unlock ipads, install apps etc but they don't use it. They can also remove passcodes on iPads using this app, if that's a feature your teachers would use.

 

I just find it much easier to use than Lightspeed and much faster to respond to any changes I push out.

I only used the free version of Mosyle but it seemed ok as well.

[Zbd]

Getting it to sync I think would be our biggest issue.

 

For us JAMF is synced to ASM, ASM in turn is syncing/federated to Azure for Verification and account creation. Azure syncs from our local AD, however we don't have any class information in A.D, only year group OUs.

 

We do have Google Classrooms that would be ideal to pull the data from, we create them at the start of the year using GAM and then teachers actively use them, and their information would be current.

 

however I am unsure how to go about this.

 

As we are Azure federated for ASM, we can't use CSV uploads to bring the class data in. On lightspeed we didn't need the class information in ASM IIRC for classroom to work, is this the same for JAMF? I thought I had read previously the information needed to be in both.

[Zbd]

I've used Lightspeed, Mosyle, Meraki, and am now using JAMF School.

 

We moved away from Lightspeed as I found it very unwieldy and slow. JAMF School works great for us. The teachers don't really have an opinion on it as they don't need to get involved with it at all.

There is a teacher app which would allow them to lock / unlock ipads, install apps etc but they don't use it. They can also remove passcodes on iPads using this app, if that's a feature your teachers would use.

 

I just find it much easier to use than Lightspeed and much faster to respond to any changes I push out.

I only used the free version of Mosyle but it seemed ok as well.

 

Lightspeed is horrifically slow, both the management UI and the time it takes to apply changes to the iPads themselves. Students would wait 5-10 min to install an app from the portal. I was shocked at the speed of JAMF when we started moving across. I would NOT recommend lightspeed to anyone. They dont even allow for a year 13 so you have to knock everyones' grade down a year