Completing one 25-unit iPad cart deployment was taking us an average of about 2 hours. Due to the errors (especially with supervision on), processing is very slow: While the preparation process takes about 15 minutes per batch, so we might do simple math like 480 iPads, 12 at a time, should take about 13.5 hours (with setup) ((480/12)*20)to complete, in reality our processing times were much, much longer.If the process gets interrupted (and occasionally even if it doesn’t), the device needs to be restored individually with iTunes before it can be reimaged with Configurator.If supervision is on, the prepare process always erases the iPad, which means that a single error results in having to complete the lengthy iOS installation process again. Further, we ran into NSURL errors when using automatic MDM enrollment anytime we had more than three or so devices connected this would only affect a minority of devices in a batch, but again, the entire process would need to be run again. Errors are common, and are not handled gracefully: we ran into trust-setting errors with some iPads that hadn’t been factory reset, which resulted in the entire process needing to be commenced again (rather than just fixing the issue and reconnecting the iPad).Devices must still be physically connected to a computer: this is onerous when managing hundreds or thousands of devices.
That said, there are some key drawbacks to Configurator: Additional management options, a more streamlined app deployment interface, ability to set the device to display the device name on the lock screen, and automatic MDM enrollment with an enrollment URL are all huge improvements. For one, the ability to bypass setup prompts (like enabling location, submitting usage data to Apple, etc.) saves about 12 taps and one minute per iPad.
It’s worth noting that this process is far better than when I started using Configurator a few years ago. Click “Prepare” to launch the preparation process on all connected devices.Configure your preparation settings in configurator: management profiles, MDM enrollment, iOS updates, supervision (if applicable), app installations, configuration payloads, device naming scheme, bypass setup prompts.
#Dep apple configurator mac
Connect an iPad (or multiple iPads via a hub, like this one) to a Mac with Apple Configurator installed.I hope that this guide to the processes, strengths, and limitations of each approach – along with an articulation of the approach we’ve settled on – will be useful to some other school and enterprise IT departments who are faced with a similar challenge. In practice, we’ve found that – for our purposes, at least – each tool has some key limitations.
#Dep apple configurator manual
Why three tools, you ask? In an ideal world, we’d pick one solution (the DEP) that doesn’t require much in the way of manual interaction with the devices and roll with it. As such, we’re making use of a few different tools, Apple Configurator, Apple’s Device Enrollment Program (DEP), and Meraki’s DEP integration. The district owns over 400 iPads, so updating and applying the settings manually, one-by-one is not an option. Supervision, it should be pointed out, isn’t as big brotheresque as it probably sounds it’s simply Apple’s term for a setting that expands remote management capabilities in iOS.
#Dep apple configurator free
In addition, we’ll be enrolling each device in Meraki Systems Manager – a free mobile device management solution provided by Cisco – and enabling device supervision. We’re in the midst of a project with a goal of updating all of our district-owned iPads to the current version of iOS. I’ve been meaning to publish this post for awhile. The ADM Schools have a snow day today – or, more correctly, a “cold day” – which has given me a chance to get caught up on some things that tend to get lost in the shuffle, like updating the technology blog.
0 kommentar(er)
