Planehazza

Thanks. I tried this yesterday but had little luck. TBH, I've given up on AC2. I've just had to settle on the fact that without a LOT of work and studying (that I simply don't have time for before these are due back on Monday) I cannot image or clone these how I want with AC. I can't even get AC1 to take a non supervised backup - it captures and saves to a file, but it doesn't show up in the list of stored backups in AC. I'm just going to rely on AC to supervise the ipads and install the profiles, then use Meraki to assign apps and licenses to devices wirelessly. If I need to make changes to restrictions and other settings etc. via a policy, I'll just have to cart them across to the office again. They're primary school children so hopefully malicious activity/fiddling will be minimised...

I can't install any profiles either. I've created several new from scratch in AC2 and tried assigning them to various iPads (fully restored) and it keeps failing after I hit the 'Apply profile' button on setup. It just says 'Invalid Profile'. My instinct is saying it#s something to do with certificates as I had to choose Always Allow for the Organisation cert in keychain. Could it be that the iPads are rejecting this? If so, how do I get around it?

Argh, I've changed my mind. AC2 is just as awful as 1.x. Initially I thought it was much better, but now it's just super fiddly, and it's constantly failing or crashing. Should "step 1 of xx - Generating wallpaper" on applying a blueprint take a long time? Our account is about 9 months old. Will this be eligible for said upgrade? We only have 33 devices.

It's a shame because they lightyears ahead of microsoft for portable devices, but for central remote management, they're horrendously bad. Looking forward to trying AC2 though. I might just have to give up for now and just make sure they all have apps X, Y, and Z as requested until I have more time. I can't see me having this done by the end of this week...

Thanks for this. I want to use AC2 to essentially set up one iPad as master and clone them from there, then really just use MDM to push out new app requests and update restrictions. Really, I want all the apps and restrictions to be set via AC2 from the start so I can essentially just use Meraki MDM to update them. IMO, Apple devices simply aren't suitable (yet) for enterprise environments. It's just awful to work with.

Free as I have less than 100 devices, and they are on a mixture of 9.1, 9.2.1, and 9.3.1. I'm aware of a bug on 9.2 but none are on that. I've just foolishly released I'm infact not on AC2; I'm on 1.75. The OSX device I use is currently updating to El Capitan so I can install 2.0. I think I'm just going to have to give up on the idea of remotely managing profiles, and instead use Meraki purely for App deployment.

Nope... I was enrolling them manually by going to m.meraki.com and punching in the code, but I want to do it as part of the supervision step. Another thing that's making it annoying is our cyberoam internet access portal. I'm currently have my manager set them up as clientless so I don't need to authenticate them after joining the WiFi. This isn't the reason that they're failing the profile installation as I've tested dozens by making sure they're connected, authenticated and able to browse the Internet and install Apps (managed and manually).

"share the ipad supervision" That's a new term/concept to me. How and where do I configure that? When I do the 'prepare' stage, I have the 'Allow device to connect to other Macs' ticked (so I can get photos off etc). I'm not sure if it's bending the rules etc, but we're only using one iTunes account for all 30 iPads. We're only using free apps however, so I think we're OK. I know it's not the best way to do it, but it's how it was set up before I started and this site.

Yup, checked earlier and it's green and valid. Currently, I'm testing a profile built in AC2.0 rather than Meraki itself. I've created and exported it, and then uploaded it to a new mobile profile that has a single tag 'Test'. I'm going to factory reset an iPad and enrol it via AC2 and see if I can push out the profile (even though AC2 should have already done this) via Meraki. Are there any good guides out there? I'm don't 100% understand all the stages in honesty. I have all the VPP and push certs sorted, but I've no idea what the SCEP CA is or if I should even be using it. There is an entry under 'current cert' however. Am I right in saying that AC2 is simply a way to get all the iPads named, supervised, and enrolled, ready for further management via Meraki? I have the correct MDM URL configured in AC2 so they should be enrolling just fine. App installs work fine from Meraki, as do their licensing, I just keep getting profile install errors. These situations remind me very easily why I ditched Apple entirely. Long live Windows and Android! Having said that, I've not done and mobile device managment with Android - I'm sure that's just as much of a ball ache!

His message was from 2013 mate, I bumped an old thread as my issue is similar.

Bump for an old thread. My devices are on 9.3.1 and are supervised by Apple Configurator, yet I still get a failure when I try to reinstall/update a profile. The profiles install fine if I re-enroll the device, but subsequent profile updates will not install. Any ideas?

Thanks. Yes he's been phenomenally helpful. I have the test users importing but I cannot get the the UPN and CN to match the SAMAccountName. Does anyone have a powershell script that will scan a particular OU and change the CN and UPN of all users so that they match the accountname? As above, the correct name is AA14 (incremented to the next available name). I need the CN and UPN to match this. I think I have a script that might do it but I'm unsure what powershell variables are to talk to the AD fields. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Just an update... I've had a couple of replies from Steven at Dovestones and he has identified a bug that prevents the users from being created despite the increment options being applied. He has informed me that they will resolve it tonight or in the morning, and have an updated version of the software some time tomorrow. Cannot argue with that!

Ah got you. Already done that, cheers!

Thanks. I can't see a phone number on their site though. Do you have a contact please?

Hi all, Got Dovestones Bulk AD Users working, but I cannot get the "Increment if another user exists with the same value" feature to work. We name our users based off of their initials (Adam Adamson is AA1), but they obviously need to be unique. So, if AA1 already exsits, and then Amy Adamson joins, how do I make the validation/import automatically give her AA2, (or even the next free account; AA3, AA4 etc.)? Thanks!

Hi all, Got Dovestones Bulk AD Users working, but I cannot get the "Increment if another user exists with the same value" feature to work. We name our users based off of their initials (Adam Adamson is AA1), but they obviously need to be unique. So, if AA1 already exsits, and then Amy Adamson joins, how do I make the validation/import automatically give her AA2, (or even the next free account; AA3, AA4 etc.)? Thanks!

Hi all, First post here. I've just started a new role in a school and have been tasked with the bulk creation of 300 new user accounts. I'm happy with using a PS1 script and referencing a CSV file with all the information. The problem, however, is our naming scheme. User Adam Adamson (Adamson, Adam) for example, will log on with AA1. However, this is a big site with 1900 students, so there are already several AA1, AA2 etc. accounts. What I need is a script that will query AD and add the new accounts, but name them as the next initials available. So if AA1, AA2, and AA3 exist, add Adam Adamson as AA4. I'm guessing that I can modify the PS1 file from the OP but I'm not proficient enough with PowerShell to know if I can simply change the variables or is an entire new PS script required? Thanks very much.