Changing a network configuration on mobile devices

Argylladmin
New Contributor II

Hello hive mind...

I'm seeking thoughts regarding ways to approach a change to network configuration.
Our WiFi configuration is in its own config. There is only one network available in the locations (schools) where these devices are used, which is obviously the network I need to change. I don't want to just make the change to the config, as if it drops off the iPad during the change I'll create a crisis for 3000+ devices in 85 locations.
I'm thinking of creating a duplicate of the network config, making the change and pushing it out to devices. When the new profile is on, I'll remove the old one. I've already got a static group excluded from the original network profile, so all I need ot do to remove it is add the iPads to the static group. What I would like to do though is to prevent the old profile from installing on any new devices and have just the new one go out from this time on.

Are there any approaches to this that I'm overlooking, or thoughts and ideas/experiences that others have found useful? Any thoughts are appreciated.

Simon

1 REPLY 1

Graeme
Contributor

This is essentially the process that we follow. Create a new profile with a different name and push it out. After that profile is installed a smart group then excludes the old profile. The only extra thing we do is also push out a second profile with a different WPA2-Enterprise certificate. We used to have issues with the Wi-Fi profile occasionally disappearing from random devices and the duplicate profile greatly reduced it. That said, for a few years mobile devices seem a lot more tolerant to having the Wi-Fi profile updated than they used to be.
Regards
Graeme