Jamf teacher - controlling of devices/classes works intermittently

user-dIrrpGXxza
Contributor

We have an on-prem installation of Jamf Pro (latest version) and would like to deploy JAMF teacher. We've done this, but we've found that the teacher actions, such as setting an app lock for a specific app, only works intermittently (some devices can, others can't), regardless of which network the devices are on. However, control of devices always work, meaning that when a command has been sent by the teacher, the student always receives them and they work as expected there.

I've been looking in the documentation to see what the network requirements are. The details are sparse, but the key phrase here seems to be "(On-premise only) Allow secure inbound connections from "student-api.services.jamfcloud.com". Does that translate to that whatever IP is behind "student-api.services.jamfcloud.com" needs to connect via HTTPS (TCP 443) to the tomcat server that we host on-prem? Or is there any other interpretation that can be derived from this? Any hints on what's going on here?

How does the Jamf teacher app send a command, like applock? Is there any info on how that flow is supposed to look like, especially from a network connection perspective?

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user-dIrrpGXxza
Contributor

So we figured it out! It turns out that our tests included a switch of roles, meaning that we tried reversing the flow of control between two devices. In order to get this to actually work, the app needs to be uninstalled or unprovisioned and then reinstalled.

We also hadn't turned on automatic clearing of jamf teacher restrictions that should occur daily at a specific time, and we hadn't set a maxiumum time limit for restrictions either - both options that you set in the Jamf teacher section in Jamf pro.

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Fluffy
Contributor III

I do not know any of the special workings of the app, but we have been using Jamf Teacher through Jamf School in some parts of our building. We had noticed when trying to use Apple Classroom with student MacBooks, some devices would show online and be able to be viewed while the rest were offline (even though they were physically present in the same classroom).

The solution was for students to restart their devices once and they have worked seamlessly ever since. This has had to be done every time a student is added to someone's class. I believe we had to do the same with a class of iPads.

user-dIrrpGXxza
Contributor

So we figured it out! It turns out that our tests included a switch of roles, meaning that we tried reversing the flow of control between two devices. In order to get this to actually work, the app needs to be uninstalled or unprovisioned and then reinstalled.

We also hadn't turned on automatic clearing of jamf teacher restrictions that should occur daily at a specific time, and we hadn't set a maxiumum time limit for restrictions either - both options that you set in the Jamf teacher section in Jamf pro.