Pushing out Apps to Mobile Device Users

[lori_burch]

I am managing around 2000 ipads in a high school environment. Each student has their own Apple ID and password All of the devices are enrolled in the management system, however I am having a hard time deciding how to form groups. I have been told that I can push out apps to 30-50 users at a time. I do not see any data about my users other than their first name, last name, and email address. If I want to push out an app to band students, it looks like I would manually have to find each band student on the list. The apps i need to push out are not free apps, so from what I understand, self-service is not an option.

[tadholyfamily]

You need more info. Using the position field or user extension attributes, you can make smart groups for "Band" or "Mr K's science class" to scope your apps. Without more than names and emails, you can't do anything more specific than alphabetical lists or maybe graduation year, if that's in their email.
There's no limit on the number of users you can push apps to, although your network get bogged down if it's too many students downloading at once. Do you have a Caching Server set up?

[lori_burch]

Is there a way to import data into the user extension attributes?

I'm not sure about the caching server. I will ask the network administrator.

[lori_burch]

Is the position field the only extra field? That is the only one I see available in the user profile. I was kind of hoping we could import data into that field in a way that is similar to Casper Focus.

[tadholyfamily]

Position is the only field by default, but you can make more fields from Settings/User Management/Extension Attributes. Click on New and you can add text, number, or date fields or dropdown menus of choices to the user information. I use them to make smart groups that scope iWorks apps, so we only give them to those kids that need it. A similar thing is at Settings/Mobile Device Management for stuff that is about the iPad instead of about the user.
I don't know about importing data to them, in my environment we didn't have any old info to import.