Best practice for 'Loan' iPads?

We were running an iPad one to one for a few years here (now on MacBook airs). We had a thriving loan business with a 60% breakage rate.

the loaners were all in DEP, and were restored between each use... I generally used Configurator and did a bunch at a time. As they were loaned out, we moved each kid into the new iPad (appleID/google/iCloud).

DEP/JSS re-enroll worked out well for the technology coordinator in another building as she tended to hand out loaners as soon as she got them back in since we never had enough loaners to go around (our loaner pool was 40 units, for 700 iPads). Also handy for the kids who managed to restore their iPads... it just reenrolls and sets up again. Show them to screw around with school property! :-)

Kids buy their own apps here (no managed licenses). I maintained a few managed apps for use if needed while the kid had the loaner but frankly I found that it was rarely needed.... the kids never really settle into their loaners. They generally used them as internet/google apps machines for the interim.

Question, can't you set managed apps to install while restoring in configurator now? I am blessedly ignorant of Configurator 2 :-)

When the repaired/replacement iPad came back we moved the kid back in... Breakage was generally glass so usually pretty easy. If the iPad was a replacement, then app backups became very critical

the process was mainly about the gotchas:

Backup.. I was never able to get a supervised iPad to restore consistently so iCloud backup/restore was out. Supposedly iOS9 fixes that... But supposedly iOS8 did too, and iI did not find that to be true

Watch for app backups, One of the most popular apps here, Notability, claims iCloud sync functionality... do not believe it! Also, its always opt in, and kids never turn it on.

iBook texts can be an issue as there is a 90 day hardware lockout for most texts... so if kid A downloads text A on iPad A then when Kid B gets iPad A after a few weeks as a loaner, they are out of luck if they need text A. I tried to get a few copies of popular texts but ran into similar issues even when restoring the text to the same iPad.

You had a 60% breakage rate? I'm sorry, but what were you doing?? Also, it helps not to allow students to reset the iPad (it's what we have set up, similar number to yours).

Yikes! I thought our 22% last year was high. :(

But to the original poster, this is a silly question - but why use loaners? Since Apple replaces the original unit with a new device every time, you'll have to update your inventory records for every repair regardless if you use loaners or not. For that reason, we simply assign a new device to each student that has a breakage.

Our current workflow looks something like this:

1. Student turns device in to the help desk, clears passcode, signs out of FMiP and performs a final iCloud backup
2. Receiving technician documents the incident in a Google form that includes the date of the incident, student's name, description of what occurred as well as the original asset ID/serial number and the replacement device's asset ID/serial number.
3. The new iPad is set up and the iCloud backup is restored to it.

...then the back-of-house process is:

1. The original unit is photoed (if damaged) and all information from the Google form is dumped into a FileMaker database that contains an inventory of the 1:1, student records and repair records.
2. The unit is submitted for repairs, the repair information is logged in the database.
3. Paperwork is sent to the business office if a purchase order is needed and also logged in the database.
4. The replacement unit is entered into the database, the repair closed and all district documentation is generated from the database.

Doing app-based deployment, I'd imagine you would need to sandwich the reassignment of apps before restoring the backup on the new device. To save time, you could simply scope out all free apps to your specific grade levels if your DEP pre-stage enrollments are configured by grade level and have related Smart Groups.

Could be the loaner iPads are older than the iPad the student damaged. Therefore they want to return the same model iPad to them to make sure it supports whatever iOS version they are running and the apps will function.

Across 3 years 60%. In a busy week we would get 10-20 broken. It was atrocious. Plus the smallest division, the middle school, accounted for the majority of breakage.... More than half, with a third the student body.

The low cost of insurnace (45 for the year, unlimited incidents) and a total lack of anything approaching reprocussions if one was broken was a perfect storm. Our "winner" broke 10 ipads....TEN. took the little bugger three years to do it but still....

The laptops have been much much better.... Though they do manage to break trackpads with regularity.

@bpalov: We were prepared to some degree for a high number of breakages, we ended up ordering roughly 5% extra for every grade level and it was enough to keep us going without running out. It came pretty close when we had a few DEP snags with the replacements not enrolling, but for the most part we were fine.

@Eyoung: Very interesting, I can say we had the same causes in our first year as well. We actually haven't charged any insurance cost up-front though, we simply charged the AppleCare deductible of $49 for the first two incidents, then full cost on any further breakages.

I'm a little surprised the laptops are faring so much better, I'd think you would have a higher breakage rate on a more fragile device. In light of our huge breakage rate, I did a little in-house durability testing and I was surprised to find out iPad mini is pretty durable. It could easily survive a 5ft drop on a corner and it was practically indestructible in it's case - although it did manage to put a dent in my file cabinet.

We make the students 1:1 iPads very open, provide lots of freedom with installing apps and the kids are encouraged to have a sense of "ownership and responsibility", the loaners are intended to be horrible by comparison. They stay at school, are very tied down and nobody wants them. We have a few students that cant quite connect the cause and effect but considering our specific circumstances our results are quite amazing.

Regards
Graeme

We have been using OtterBox Defender for our iPad minis, and have a very low breakage rate.