App auto-install

[MinhPhan]

Hello guy,

We are now deploying apps to the iPads. But we have 2 types of iPad. One for staff, one for student. How can I setup an app auto install on student's ipads but kiosk on staff's?

Thank you.

[BrechtSchamp]

Tag both device types with a tag (e.g. "student" "staff"). Apply the Kiosk profile to the devices tagged with "staff" and set the App installation scope to "student".

[MinhPhan]

Sorry. I made a mistake. It's not kiosk mode. I want the app do not auto-install on staff ipads so they can choose to install the app they need. But the app will auto install on student

Thanks for your response

[BrechtSchamp]

Ah yes, seems like this won't be possible. Perhaps you can create two separate networks?

[MinhPhan]

Seems it's the only option. But can I add one VPP account to 2 different networks?

[BrechtSchamp]

The VPP settings are on an organization level, so I don't think that will be an issue.

[vassallon]

At this time there is no functionality to setup an App twice within Meraki to assign different settings to the push. Perhaps we need to make a wish for this as I can most definitely see the value of it.

There will be no issue with one VPP account servicing multiple networks. I do that here for 17 different networks. One issue I can see is that if you use Apple Classroom you may have issues if the iPads are on seperate networks. 

I did verify the Apple Classroom issue is still occurring if you have iPads in different networks and opened a case with support.

[vassallon]

So as a follow-up to my case I got the following link, which I've never seen before. 

https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Profiles_and_Settings/Configuring_Apple_School_Manager_for_Share... 

It has this little gem of information:

Note: To configure Apple Classroom, only one Education profile payload should be used for both teacher and student devices. Creating multiple Education profiles will cause the classrooms to go out of sync. Furthermore, teacher and student devices should be in the same Systems Manager network in order to receive the same Education profile

It's not a practical solution to only have one network within Education for possibly thousands of iPads with multiple profile and app needs. In my district alone we have a network for each school so that we can accomplish this task. For the most part we don't have much crossover between schools but we do have teachers that teach at multiple schools and students that attend multiple schools based on class needs and in these instances Apple Classroom will not work for all of their needs.

[BlakeRichardson]

One option that isn't pretty but would work is to have the apps automatically install on both staff and student devices and on staff devices organise the apps you dont want them to see into a folder, its not ideal but would work.

Otherwise get the staff to manually delete the app or organise it into a folder themselves. 

[vassallon · Accepted solution]

@BlakeRichardson 

I would suggest teachers putting it into a folder, as with it set to Auto-Install, Meraki should repush it any time it sees it missing from the iPad.

As a follow up to my ticket with support, I was told to make a wish to get the functionality across networks working for ASM. 

[MinhPhan]

I made a wish too, hopefully Meraki will make the function possible.

Thank you all.

[MinhPhan]

I just have an idea. It's quite manual but it will solve the problem. 

When we first add an app to the apps page, select auto-install option, select scope "student". After the app is installed on all student devices (we can check by missing apps), disable auto-install and select scope to all devices.

I have just thought about it, I'll test on my network to see if it works. 

Cheers.

[vassallon]

@MinhPhan 

That would work as well, however if any student iPads get reset then the App would not auto-install but would be available for download through the Meraki App if you push it out to iPads.