Apple School Manager syncing

[beks88]

In addition to other MDMs, we are also testing Meraki as an option for Apple School Manager.

Because of that, I would like to know if a location based sync with Apple School Manager accounts (Managed Apple IDs) is on the Meraki developers roadmap? Currently I haven't found an option and all available accounts get synced into Systems Manager.

What issues can be expected if some accounts sync with two MDMs?

Any experience so far?

[PhilipDAth]

>What issues can be expected if some accounts sync with two MDMs?

That is not possible.

For Apple and enrolled device can only be in "supervised" mode with one MDM.

For Android and enrolled device can only be in "device ownder" mode with one MDM.

[beks88]

I'm not talking about devices, I'm talking about accounts, which can be created in Apple School Manager and synced to Systems Manager or another MDM.
Systems Manager f.e. syncs all available accounts from Apple School Manager.
In jamfSCHOOL you can choose from which location to sync accounts.

Expecting you have a school in location A and a school in location B. Both use the same School Manager but have two IT departments. Department A manages location A in Systems Manager and department B manages location B in jamfSCHOOL.

As of current state, Systems Manager will have teacher and student accounts synced from location A and B.

[BlakeRichardson]

@beks88 What you are asking isn't currently possible. When it comes to syncing ASM or ABM accounts its all or nothing. What you could do is use the tags within Meraki to highlight which Org / Location the user belongs to. 

[beks88]

Yes, I noticed that it's not possible in SM, just wanted to know if I missed a setting in SM, if already someone tried the same and if it's on the roadmap of the developing team.

[BlakeRichardson]

@beks88  Meraki programmers don't publicly talk about the developement roadmap, your only option is to use the make a wish feature and raise it here in the hope a developer may see your post. 

[Noah_Salzman]

Programmers don't talk about roadmap... but Product Managers usually don't mind, in some cases. 😉

In this case, @beks88, this is not a feature currently on the road map.

[vassallon]

@beks88 Yuck two different MDMs from one ASM, it should in theory be possible. I don't know why you would have different MDMs as that would be a management headache having to potentially moving devices back and forth between the schools.

As for syncing accounts, I don't see why there would be any issues with having the sync occur. I know in past discussions I've had with Meraki the only thing that occurs on a sync with ASM in new data is imported unless a full ASM import is needed. 

Having updated information from both schools on a sync might not be a bad idea in case something occurred where you had to cut both schools over to one of the MDMs for some reason.

[BlakeRichardson]

@vassallon  It works having two different MDM's, we run SM for iOS devices and Jamf for MacOS devices. Both MDM have their own VPP accounts and ASM is set to automatically enrol any iOS devices to SM and MacOS devices to JAMF. 

Now having two instances of SM I probably wouldn't do as that would get really confusing with devices licensing and what device was enrolled where.....

[vassallon]

@BlakeRichardson 

That's good to hear. I can understand having it separated that way, as I hate to say it, but Jamf is much better when it comes to managing Macs that Meraki.

[beks88]

It's not as much confusing as you think :).

We have for different device use cases different SM networks/instances (name it how you like). The only thing you have to do is to assign the devices manually to the desired MDM (in this case network/instance).