If you’re managing a 1:1
program and provisioning iPads, you have tools at your fingertips that can make
device provisioning process a lot easier. Louisa County Public Schools supports
about 400 students on iPads in their 1:1 program, and was finding the
provisioning process demanded a lot of manual work, and worse, had the
potential to break during an SIS upgrade.
Apple School Manager is the
software used to provision iPads, and it requires a complex CSV export from the
SIS – an extract that is not typically provided by the SIS vendor. In addition,
the CSV file format requires a location ID for every class, section, student,
and teacher – the location is usually the school, but a typical SIS stores the
school’s identifier only in the school object. Export scripts linking that ID
and other key information across multiple data types proved to be complex and
slow-performing.
Louisa County was already
using the Kimono platform for integrations with Active Directory, G Suite, and
Follett Directories, as well as to support integrations that move data to other
systems (transportation, cafeteria, etc.). Utilizing the mapping and
transformation capabilities they already had access to in Kimono, Louisa was
able to map School Local ID to the required location ID and create the exact
CSV export needed by Apple School Manager, without ever touching the SIS. It is
now simple to run the export whenever it’s needed, or they can schedule it to
run automatically.
With the SIS data already
in Kimono, there’s no performance hit to the SIS, like there normally would be
when running such an extract. By offloading complex tasks like this from the
SIS server, Louisa County ensures better performance for all their users.
As an added benefit, because
Louisa is using Kimono Directories to automate provisioning of Active Directory
and G Suite, they were able to use the same credentials for Apple School
Manager, enabling students to have just one login for the device and their
school accounts. This wouldn’t be possible without some sort of middleware
since those credentials do not typically exist in the SIS.
Louisa County Public Schools, located in Virginia, supports
about 4,800 students in six schools.
Interested in knowing more about how to connect your Kimono integration to Apple School Manager? Contact Steve at 877-262-9143 ext. 7010.
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