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Magic iPad Button - Amazon Dash?

  • January 21, 2017
  • 5 replies
  • 34 views
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We are a 1:1 school with approx 2500 iPads. We are increasingly being asked for a way to lockdown the iPads to be used for online tests and activities. I would like to put the teacher in control of the locking down.

Does anyone have experience installing JSS config profiles via Amazon Dash button (or IoT Button)? I think it's possible, but want to get any feedback before purchasing. Ideally, the button would be used like "one press for adding a scope to a config profile" and "double press to remove it"... Something simple to perform a task on a group of iPads at one time.

Notes:

1) We have a strange school schedule, so timed events in JSS is not feasible.
2) Some teachers need locking to a particular site in Safari. I have been able to configure this in the JSS, it's the execution and removal of the config profile that I need the teachers to do.
3) We played around with Apple Classroom, but it's too limiting for our needs (needing access to one site and/or disabling all other notifications)
4) We have not yet implemented Apple School Manager, mainly due to the incompatibility of ASM and our SMS.
5) I have extensively tested iBeacons for this application, but it is far too unreliable. It sometimes works perfectly, other times not. And the config lockdown profile never removes itself from the iPad after leaving an iBeacon zone.

5 replies

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  • bvondeylen
  • Contributor
  • January 23, 2017

If you are 1:1, use Apple Classroom. Teacher can launch an app for iPads in their classroom and put the app in Single App mode. It's free and it work great for 1:1 classrooms.

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  • bvondeylen
  • Contributor
  • January 23, 2017

Apple Classroom reallly wants access to ASM. You should be able to manually import your users from your SMS to ASM using SFTP. Even if you only do it once. From there, Apple Classroom works extremely well. I am not sure what you mean by limiting for your needs. The only thing Apple Classroom needs is Bluetooth and Classes setup in JAMF.

If gives the teachers the power you are asking for, and gives the teachers access to view what the students are doing on their iPads.

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  • Emmert
  • Valued Contributor
  • January 24, 2017
Does anyone have experience installing JSS config profiles via Amazon Dash button (or IoT Button)? I think it's possible, but want to get any feedback before purchasing.

I think this is possible as well, but do you have existing code that would do this with the API, or is this still hypothetical?

It sounds like it would be quite a bit of work to coordinate more than one of these (rather than just making one as a novelty), and complex enough that there would be a lot of potential problems.

Could you give the teachers that need it limited JSS access instead?

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  • sweaver
  • Author
  • New Contributor
  • January 26, 2017

Unless I'm missing something, Apple Classroom will only allow single app mode, but will allow students to navigate away from a site in Safari. Using config profiles will allow whitelisting of certain domains with the content filter. In this case, Jupiter:

Limited access to JSS is another route. For the sake of class time, it's easier to have him/her just "lockdown fast". I agree with the complexities of trying to get it to work might have potential problems. Right now i't s just a hypothetical thing.

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  • d_berry_bac
  • New Contributor
  • February 1, 2017

it is possible to change the scoping of configuration profiles via the JAMF API

look up the configuration profile you want to change using this url (Changing $JSSAPIURL to your JAMF url ie https://casper.domain.com:8443)
$JSSAPIURL/JSSResource/mobiledeviceconfigurationprofiles

then look up the configuration profile using the id
$JSSAPIURL/mobiledeviceconfigurationprofiles/id/{id}

so it would look something like
https://casper.domain.com:8443/JSSResource/mobiledeviceconfigurationprofiles/id/2

then you would change the scope section of the xml
and re-upload the changed xml using the curl put command or equivalent depending on preferred programming language and Operating system

if your not familiar with using the API this guide has as alot of good information to get you started
https://bryson3gps.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/the-jss-rest-api-for-everyone/

Hope this helps

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