***Update: Please check out my most recent step by step iPad deployment strategyat http://www.techlog.ca/ipad-deployment-backup-restore-deployment-strategy-and-steps/
Recently I have been doing a lot of research on what the workflow to deploy a number of iPads at a school would look like. I discovered there are lots of resources on the internet that focus on how they will be used in the classrooms, but there was not much that I was able to find on the best practices in the steps taken to prepare them for use. Based on some research, I put down on paper an order of steps that I thought made sense and worked on a small deployment of about 40 iPads. I learned a lot from that deployment and made some modifications to my plan. This week I worked on another deployment of 30 iPads running a beta of iOS 5 and a cart, where I was able to fine tune the steps that I was following. While there was a little back peddling and troubleshooting a few steps that did not go as well as I would have hoped, the following article describes the steps that did work well and the order in which I took them.
Step 1. Naming conventions. Through numerous discussions we decided that each device could be set up with a generic email account. These devices would be shared with different users throughout the day and the use of device based email would be an easy way for teachers to deliver materials to the devices and allow students to easily hand things back to the teacher or collaborate with other students. Also, because Canada does not have access to the App Store Volume Purchase Program from Apple yet, individual email addresses would be required to set up iTunes accounts for each device. So we registered a new domain with Google apps and set up 30 email accounts, one for each device. We then setup an email account for the site iPad admin, and a generic teacher email account.
Using these new accounts we created an iTunes account for the iPad admin using a school credit card for purchases, and 30 iTunes accounts using the 30 device based email addresses. These 30 iTunes accounts were setup with no credit card information. All purchases would be made by the ipadadmin iTunes account. Because you can only purchase an item once with an iTunes account, you could gift an app from the iPadadmin account to the 30 device accounts. This way we are not violating any license agreements and making sure that developers are getting paid for their hard work.
Later on when unpacking and setting up the devices, they will be labeled with the email address associated to that device and named the same as well.
While at this stage we also set up a mobile me account so we could use the “find my iPad” feature.
Step 2. The Bretford cart was unpacked and assembled. All of the iPads were unpacked, labeled, and placed into the cart. They were all powered on as they were placed in the cart to speed up the activation process.
Step 3. The sync station was set up. Because the school wanted to try out iOS 5, the beta of iTunes and the iOS were downloaded and installed on the laptop. In our case we are using a macbook pro as our sync station. We downloaded and installed Xcode and used it to upgrade the os on all of the device to iOS 5.
Step 4. One at a time, we plugged in each iPad to activate and register the devices. Having previously set up the ipadadmin iTunes account with the address of the school saved us a lot of time as we were able to pull this information from an existing apple id. The device was named and then the iTunes sync prefs for the device were set before moving on to the next device. Don’t be tempted to turn on wireless syncing at this time as it caused no end of headaches during other parts of this process.
Step 5. Configuration profiles. We decided that building a master iPad, backing it up and then restoring it to all the other devices did not gain us much, as many of the device settings we wanted would not actually transfer during a restore because they required a password or other authorization. We decided to focus our efforts on building configuration profiles for as many of these settings as we could and then manually setting those that we could not configure with a profile.
We created a single profile with the wireless network name and password, a single profile with a few restrictions, and then a profile for each email account; each device would receive its own profile.
Because you must interact with the device during the installation of a profile, installing them while plugged into the cart was cumbersome. I purchased a drink 7 port usb 2 hub for this purpose. I plugged 7 iPads into the hub, applied the wireless config profile to all of them, then like an assembly line, interacted with the screen on each iPad to complete the install. You must complete the install of the profile before a second profile can be added. Then the restriction profile was added to each of these 7, and finally the profile containing the email account for each device was installed. Earlier I warned you about enabling wireless syncing. I had enabled it and had duplicate devices showing up in the list of devices and had nothing but problems trying to apply profiles. It wasn’t until I turned it off that I was able to apply all the profiles without trouble.
Step 6. Because the configuration profiles were applied through usb, iTunes will force you to provide a password to encrypt each backup during the sync step. Once all of the iPads had their config profiles installed I plugged the iPads all back into the cart and synced each one, providing for each device when prompted, a password to encrypt the backup. At this point I enabled the wireless syncing option for each iPad in iTunes. After 1 more sync it would now sync wirelessly as long as it was plugged into power. The cart would now not need to be plugged into the sync station in order to sync with the iPads.
Step 7. Manual settings. There were a few settings that we had to do manually. We entered the mobile me account in the iCloud setup and enabled find my iPad. And we enabled auto downloads of purchased apps. During this process we downloaded ibooks, entered the ipadadmin account, and authorized the account with the 3 digit security code on the back of the original credit card used. Now when you purchased an app on the sync station, it would automatically download on all the iPads as long as they were connected to the internet.
Thats it. They are now ready for teachers and staff to decide what apps they will be installing on them. App placement and folders can be managed in iTunes and will be adjusted when synced.
UPDATE…We recently disabled automatic download of apps and books on all of the devices as it was too much of a strain on the network. This was discovered when a rather large app was selected for download and all thirty devices decided to download it as well at the same time.
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I am curious about the Auto Download on iTunes. We have 20 iPads that are set to ONE iTunes account. They are not in any type of syncing case. We thought that the auto download would take care of the need for a syncing case. I was able to sync three free apps – then it stopped working.
Thoughts?
I’m also curious about the generic email accounts. We have a set of 20 iPads being used by 80 students. Do you give all the students the email information? We were wanting to do something like that so that students could attach and email Page documents.
I appreciate your time!
Sincerely,
Candace Townsley
Thank you for your questions Candace. Keep in mind that we are currently using ios 5 beta 7 and the version of itunes that goes along with it. All of the ipads are currently set to wirelessly sync with itunes. This alone does not take care of auto downloading purchases on the ipads and to be honest i do not believe it has anything to do with it at all. This setting from what i understand allows idevices connected to the same wireless network as the main sync computer to synchronize with itunes without the need to plug them directly into the computer. When i enabled the auto download on the devices i was prompted to enter an itunes account. I entered the itunes account and password that is being used in the school to purchase all the apps on the sync station. Then i removed one of the previously purchased apps and re-downloaded it. This prompted me to authorize the account again. I entered the account and password again and then entered the three digit security code from the back of the credit card used to create the account in the first place. Once this is done the device information i assume is stored somewhere at apple authorizing this device to download purchased applications. I did try to do the same with books but after the 10th device was presented with an error message letting me know i had reached the limit of devices i could authorize. I stopped enabling this option for books and was able to continue with apps.
At the beginning we decided that because the devices would be used by many different students throughout the day, we would set up an email address for each device rather than for each student. This way teachers could send documents via email to all the devices being used in their classroom and students could email their work back to the teacher or share with other students by simply knowing the email address of the device they wanted to send to. The devices were labled with the email address and were also named in itunes with the email address. Itunes accounts were registered using these email addresses but using the no credit card method of registering the account. These accounts are not used to purchase apps, they are simply to receive apps that are gifted from the main school ipad admin itunes account.
all of the names, account information and passwords are stored in a secure document and kept in the office for the on site ipad admin.
So far i have purchased about 6 or 7 apps and have verified that they downloaded to all the devices without having to sync them. I have not run into any problems yet but have only downloaded one app at a time.
I have not tried emailing pages documents yet, the ipads wont be used until we can purchase some sort of case for them to protect them.
I hope this is helpful and appreciate your questions.
Mark O’Neil
Thanks for sharing Mark! I had a question about step five. Did you say that you did some wireless syncing? I didn’t know that was possible. But it seems you combined wired syncing (from the cart) and wireless syncing. When is wired syncing most appropriate and when can/should you use wireless syncing?
During the process we enabled wireless syncing for each device. After doing this I noticed i was not able to plug the cart with all the iPads in to the sync station without iTunes crashing. Keep in mind this is all beta software right now so there may still be a few kinks to work out. In order to be able to get syncing to work through usb i had to disable the network connection on the sync station, then plug in the cart with no iPads connected and then plug in each iPad one at a time. Then i could sync the devices through usb on masse. The other thing i noticed with wireless syncing enabled was that iPhone config utility did not behave the same. Though many of the iPads would show up in the list of devices even before they were plugged in( i am assuming that the same thing that makes them visible wirelessly to iTunes is at work here) you could not apply profiles until they were plugged in. But when you plugged them in while wireless syncing was enabled on them, more than one of each would show up in the list of devices. I think i had to disable the network connections on the sync station before i was able to apply any configuration profiles. I am now experimenting with lion server profile manager and hope that i can get away from having to use the ipcu. Thanks for your question and i hope i was able to answer it for you.
Thanks for the detailed instructions and big thanks for sharing!
Save me a ton of time as I was going to do an official write up. Thinking of actually doing an epub with video.
I have been running the exact same set up with 15 iPad2s and a few iPad1 with Google Apps as well.
I found that one or two fail to sync automatically. Also, video files seem to stall during syncing via network. USB no problems.
What do you find?
Thank you for the comment. Today I found that when I woke up the sync station and launched iTunes, only about half of the iPads showed up as connected wirelessly. I quit iTunes and relaunched but found the same thing. Only after restarting the laptop did all of the iPads show up again. On another note tomorrow I am attending a meeting with IT from 7 neighboring school districts in British Columbia to share ideas and experiences in iPad deployment. I am looking forward to hearing what everyone has to share.
In regards to Candace’s comment- we thought we could also use wireless syncing for our iPad pilot of 100 iPads distributed in 3 different schools…but the maximum number of devices that iTunes will allow a wireless sync (or through iCloud) is 10…and that includes the computer. Sadly and costly, the only way to get all the devices to sync easily is with the cart.
Are you talking about syncing wirelessly to iTunes or using the auto download feature? I see all the devices listed in the left sidebar when I open iTunes and there are 30 devices there. Are you not able to individually start syncing on each one of them past 10? What happens when you start syncing number 11?
Mark,
Do you then only have one iPad admin account with iTunes? Each iPad then has it’s own email account? Ie. Ipad5@gmail.com. Have you tried syncing from a PC? It obviously would work better from a Mac. I have 20 to reset up and sync. Waiting for cases on 10 of them before deployment.
Darren
Yes we have one ipad admin account in iTunes to download and purchase apps. We haven’t purchased any yet, we have been downloading free apps. The plan is to use the ipad admin account and gift apps to the other 30 accounts that have been setup for each individual iPad. This way were are not violating any license agreements. We have one site that has chosen to use a pc as a sync station but it does not seem to work as well as a mac. We are looking forward to when the App store VPP is available to us in Canada.
Mark,
You have provided the best online support I’ve seen. It has been challenging to find something easy to set up these iPads. Have you looked at the iPhone configuration for windows? It was recommended by one of the techs at Apple in Vancouver. It is a way to keep all the iPads the same look without the students changing the apps on them.
Darren
Yes I have played with the iPhone configuration utility on both Mac and Win. I just posted notes on a deployment strategy that includes using the iPhone configuration utility at http://www.techlog.ca/ipad-deployment-strategies/. I talk about one of the popular deployment strategies out there and why I chose a different strategy. There is a question at the end asking for input on weather it is better to “image” with as many settings included or to try and set as many of those settings as possible with configuration profiles. I hope to get some good suggestions and feedback on the topic.
Hi!
I am a Literacy teacher at an elementary school. As a gift we are receiving 5 Ipads for us to use specifically for Literacy. Can you give me any instruction or advice to use before we get started? Only having 5, I assume we can get by without a cart or syncing station? Should we set up different accounts as well? Any input will be valued! Thanks!
Buying a sync cart for 5 would be overkill. But you should consider a secure place to store and charge them. There are some usb hubs that you can use to connect them all to your sync station so you dont have to sync them one at a time. You probably dont need to set up different accounts on your computer for each iPad. I would only do this if you had 2 sets of ipads that were different, like 50 student ipads that are identical and another differently setup set of ipads for staff.
We are started a program with 25 devices (20 iTouch/5 iPads) at a school for children with special needs. We just purchased the sync cart and were never told by Apple that we need a Mac to sync the devices but read the instructions just the other day. We have not attempted yet to sync the devices (concerned about apps not being updated to iOS5) but were curious if it is possible to sync the devices with a PC?
Yes you can use a pc. It has been reported that there are more problems syncing with a pc than a mac but I am not certain what they are.
Can anyone assist with a Lion Server 10.7 profile manager configuration for wi-fi iPad enrollment? I just need to get to the point where I can see the profile manager web pages… Something apparently isn’t configured properly. I can access the web site using “https://servername/” from my work station which gets me to the “Welcome to Lion Server” splash page. But when I click on the Profile Manager link the page comes up blank…
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I’m currently working on an iPad roll out of a 1,300+ iPad one-2-one program for our local High School. The main question I have it how do other folks get around the fact that iTunes only allowed 10 new account creations per hour from a single IP address?
We rolled out 55 teacher iPads last month and when the High School staff themselves sat down to create App-store accounts we found that 11th person got an error message that no more accounts could be created. Was a total mess, took a couple days to get everyone registered and running due to the fact only 10 accounts could be created at one time.
Thoughts? Advice?
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Steven W.
You should be able to contact your Apple rep to get around the Apple ID account creation issue. They will “whitelist” your IP address for a few days while your teachers create their Apple IDs. You could also try this Batch Apple ID creator. I haven’t tried it but it sounds like some folks have had success. http://www.enterpriseios.com/node/2488/wcusd15.org?page=1
Good luck with your iPad deployment!!
~Joe
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