school users

[archie3]

Hello. I would like some advice please.  

At the moment, the school I just started at has meraki & apple school manager.  They are not using managed ids, instead each child signs in under 1 student account and 1 password.

I am a teacher and I have 26 apple mac laptops that I want to set up so that different classes of students can come into the class and sign in with their own unique student name and password and the laptop will load up their own student profile. 

My questions - 1. Is this done through meraki or apple school manager?  2. are apple managed ids a must for this to happen? 3. The students do have google accounts - is it easier to link with google accounts? 

Also, where do I start?  I´m not use to doing my own IT network admin and unfortunately, I´m not getting any help so I´m having to teach myself.

Please can you help me with a simple checklist of where to start and what solutions I can do to make student profiles efficiently on mac laptops.

Also - future wish -  at some point, I will need to create  ´test student´ accounts for 45 students and these laptops will need to have no internet on them and all apps apart from a few locally installed will need to be hidden.

thanks for your help and patience with this basic question.

[mlefebvre]

Someone else with more SM experience will need to chime in about your more specific questions, but as for getting started here are some important links you should review. 

The Quick Start Guide is here:  https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Systems_Manager_Quick-Start

Best Practices for Education is here: https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Deployment_Guides/Education_Deployment_Guide_and_Best_Practices

The index of all other documentation for Systems Manager is here: https://documentation.meraki.com/SM

[archie3]

Thank you for these links 🙂

[ekramer]

I don’t believe Meraki has a IDP tool for Google accounts on macOS, but there maybe some 3rd party tools that you can hook into Systems Manager. You’ll probably need to configure Google authentication for Apple IDs, as well, to tie it all together. 

[PhilipDAth]

@BlakeRichardson , are you able to offer any tips?

[BlakeRichardson]

@archie3 Mac's don't work well in a shared environment, Apple deprecated network homes a long time ago. The best I've come us with is Jamf connect to manage the login side of things using Google credentials however that creates accounts with local homes so disk space could become a issue for you very quickly. 

Thankfully thats not really an issue for me as all users are BYOD and there are only limited shared devices that are there as a backup or they have specialised software installed i.e. protools. 

Given you are a teacher and it sound like you have had this dumped on you I would suggest involving a MSP if you can. 

[archie3]

Thank you, this is helpful feedback. 

[PaulF]

Lots to get through here:

Firstly, Education profiles have to be assigned to a Mac as a User profile, not Device. That's the first caveat

But, the issue that I can't seem to find is how to get students to be able to log into the Mac, just like you do with a shared iPad: That bit alludes me

I think the answer to that will probably be to have students and teachers as apple managed users in school.apple.com, or to federate with GSuite and Azure

I'll keep searching but I think that's the answer for the moment

Paul

[vassallon]

Here's the documentation from Apple on this subject.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/deployment-education

Here is infomation about Apple Classroom and Macs.

https://support.apple.com/guide/classroom/welcome/mac

I would also think there would likely be some sort of Apple Rep for the region that @archie3 is in that should be able to provide guidance to help assist in getting things working. I know here in Oregon we have one that I've reached out to in the past.

To be honest though, I'm not sure if Apple ever set up Macs to work the same way as iPads with Shared Use. I've never gone down that rabbit hole of exploration.

[archie3]

Thank you, this is very helpful feedback. I think what I have seen before in another school was federate ids with azure but I´m guessing/ hoping that i just use apple managed ids generated via ASM instead.   

thanks again!