Shared iPads and syncing photos

[CHiLL]

We have for a long time had grab and go iPads and whenever they needed the camera enabling on them, we'd have to do it via Intune and remember to disable it again. To sync any photos taken, we use QFile to copy them to our QNAP (a script running continuously on our file server then copies the photos to the staff shared area) and the app is manually configured on each iPad, along with a passcode to prevent students from changing settings. We are now looking at moving to shared iPad mode and part of my testing has shown that the app configuration for QFile is saved in each user's profile.

 

Does anyone know of a way that I can achieve automatic photo syncing to the QNAP via an iOS app, ideally one that supports an app configuration policy/XML that can be deployed via MDM. I'd rather not open the shared folder on the QNAP to allow anyone to copy data to it if I can help it.

[Brimstone]

Can I ask why you are moving to shared iPad mode?

You will need a minimum of 64GB of storage even for a very small number of students, don't even bother with 32GB

[CHiLL]

Can I ask why you are moving to shared iPad mode?

You will need a minimum of 64GB of storage even for a very small number of students, don't even bother with 32GB

It's all come down to safeguarding and the inability to track student usage of websites visited on iOS, such as a student searching for self harm for example. We've previously used signing sheets that teachers filled out before handing the iPads out, but that lead to a lot of incomplete forms that were useless for tracking usage. We already subscribe to Smoothwall Monitor and will be purchasing Smoothwall Cloud Filter for deployment with DFE laptops at home (both of which include the use of iOS devices in their licenses). However, to use it with iOS, the iPad should be in shared mode to enforce users to log in with their Apple ID/federated Entra credentials, where the Smoothwall Browser app will use SSO to determine who they are, log what they are doing in the browser and send to Monitor if necessary.

 

We only have 32GB iPads and I've only been using it on the spare iPad I have access to, though I am almost ready to push to a single class set for further testing. I have configured the policy that will delete the oldest profile from the iPad when the next student logs in, so I'm assuming this will alleviate the storage limitations that are required?