Good afternoon, all, and welcome back!!! I can FINALLY say that we are doing well here in Barnesville, well at least until a storm knocked out fiber optic cables to the elementary school from the high school - but we are learning that we CAN NOT have everything working in our school district as we are yet to have a day that everything works - YIKES! Here is a recap of what has been going on for us -
1. We NO LONGER use Apple Configurator to deploy apps onto iPads. We upgraded to JAMF Software and Casper Suite and thus push everything wirelessly! WHICH is SUPER GREAT - BUT I have now developed a love/hate relationship with JAMF, similar to the one I had with Apple Configurator! When it works - it's AMAZING! When it doesn't it's FRUSTRATING. There are few things that have yet to be resolved - and it's only affecting 10-12 iPads - BUT nonetheless, it isn't working and I don't know what to do! Part of it could be the fact that thousands of others are trying to access the app store through Volume Purchasing, and part of it has to be on JAMF"s side - regardless - NO SOLUTION HAS BEEN FOUND for some of these.
2. The issues regarding JAMF were PARTIALLY solved because all iPads had to be updated to at least the iOS 9 operating system. NOW, if I would had known that from the beginning, things would have been PERFECT - however, I didn't. After seven, yes seven, days of tech supports and sending logs to them daily multiple times, I finally get on the phone with a guy, who I still think was a twelve year old boy as he sounded like one:) - and the FIRST thing he asks me is, "Are all the iPads operating on at least iOS 9 of greater?" I said, "Not sure, let me look." Obviously the answer was NO and THAT problem was solved. NOW, had I had that information before, all iPads would have been ready for distribution when we were supposed to do it - OH WELL:)!
3. When we did our JumpStart (learning the system basically) of JAMF Software, we were told to set it up certain ways and check and uncheck boxes that they had us do. OBVIOUSLY I have NO idea what I was doing here, so I just trusted that things were good - UNTIL THEY WEREN'T!!!! One of the boxes they had us check was "automatically update apps as updates come up." BAD IDEA! So here we are day three of school and the kids walk into the building and Word, PowerPoint, Schoology, Pic Collage and Notability ALL start to update - that's right - 900 devices doing the update - UGH!! Now these apps are NOT little, so basically we lost an ENTIRE day of WiFi because they were updating. We set things up the "wrong" way apparently - so once we struggled through this day, we set apps to never up date - unless I tell them - which I had NO idea how to do before - so we're good now - WHEW!
4. There are about 15 iPads in our district that for the life of me I can NOT get apps to them! SOME things were solved with a few apps - as I was able to add these iPads to "exclusions" push out them and then add them back - and the apps reinstalled the RIGHT way. However, on some, I get a few errors that I can't solve, and no one seems to be able to help me - "The application is already scheduled for management" is one of them and "Application is not available to install" is the other one! I don't know what to do! JAMF seems to think it's on Apple's end, and I haven't had time yet to sit with Apple and chat with them - that call will be made soon :(!!
5. SO, here I sit now trying to figure out Apple Classroom and ALL the benefits THIS will offer us - with my head already ready to explode! We haven't even STARTED to think about this - BUT we will be going with it and jumping in SUPER SOON, so I will keep you posted as to how that goes for us and all the set up and steps involved in this beauty - EXCITED FOR THIS ONE:)!!!
SO - that's the beginning of the year thus far - a little stressed - I'd say - but things SEEM to be moving in the right direction now with minor issues finishing up to be solved - until another day!
**Sidenote - I WILL be updating ALL app lists on the blog VERY SOON - sorry it's been delayed!**
Happy Thursday all-
Mrs. I:)
1. We NO LONGER use Apple Configurator to deploy apps onto iPads. We upgraded to JAMF Software and Casper Suite and thus push everything wirelessly! WHICH is SUPER GREAT - BUT I have now developed a love/hate relationship with JAMF, similar to the one I had with Apple Configurator! When it works - it's AMAZING! When it doesn't it's FRUSTRATING. There are few things that have yet to be resolved - and it's only affecting 10-12 iPads - BUT nonetheless, it isn't working and I don't know what to do! Part of it could be the fact that thousands of others are trying to access the app store through Volume Purchasing, and part of it has to be on JAMF"s side - regardless - NO SOLUTION HAS BEEN FOUND for some of these.
2. The issues regarding JAMF were PARTIALLY solved because all iPads had to be updated to at least the iOS 9 operating system. NOW, if I would had known that from the beginning, things would have been PERFECT - however, I didn't. After seven, yes seven, days of tech supports and sending logs to them daily multiple times, I finally get on the phone with a guy, who I still think was a twelve year old boy as he sounded like one:) - and the FIRST thing he asks me is, "Are all the iPads operating on at least iOS 9 of greater?" I said, "Not sure, let me look." Obviously the answer was NO and THAT problem was solved. NOW, had I had that information before, all iPads would have been ready for distribution when we were supposed to do it - OH WELL:)!
3. When we did our JumpStart (learning the system basically) of JAMF Software, we were told to set it up certain ways and check and uncheck boxes that they had us do. OBVIOUSLY I have NO idea what I was doing here, so I just trusted that things were good - UNTIL THEY WEREN'T!!!! One of the boxes they had us check was "automatically update apps as updates come up." BAD IDEA! So here we are day three of school and the kids walk into the building and Word, PowerPoint, Schoology, Pic Collage and Notability ALL start to update - that's right - 900 devices doing the update - UGH!! Now these apps are NOT little, so basically we lost an ENTIRE day of WiFi because they were updating. We set things up the "wrong" way apparently - so once we struggled through this day, we set apps to never up date - unless I tell them - which I had NO idea how to do before - so we're good now - WHEW!
4. There are about 15 iPads in our district that for the life of me I can NOT get apps to them! SOME things were solved with a few apps - as I was able to add these iPads to "exclusions" push out them and then add them back - and the apps reinstalled the RIGHT way. However, on some, I get a few errors that I can't solve, and no one seems to be able to help me - "The application is already scheduled for management" is one of them and "Application is not available to install" is the other one! I don't know what to do! JAMF seems to think it's on Apple's end, and I haven't had time yet to sit with Apple and chat with them - that call will be made soon :(!!
5. SO, here I sit now trying to figure out Apple Classroom and ALL the benefits THIS will offer us - with my head already ready to explode! We haven't even STARTED to think about this - BUT we will be going with it and jumping in SUPER SOON, so I will keep you posted as to how that goes for us and all the set up and steps involved in this beauty - EXCITED FOR THIS ONE:)!!!
SO - that's the beginning of the year thus far - a little stressed - I'd say - but things SEEM to be moving in the right direction now with minor issues finishing up to be solved - until another day!
**Sidenote - I WILL be updating ALL app lists on the blog VERY SOON - sorry it's been delayed!**
Happy Thursday all-
Mrs. I:)
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