Integrate your MIS with Jamf School

Syncing data between platforms will save time and prevent workload duplication when managing Apple devices with Mobile Device Management software (MDM). There are additional benefits for schools such as syncing class data into Apple Classroom, complimentary 200GB iCloud storage per user and access to collaboration features on apps.

Apple School Manager and Jamf School

The process we're putting together will keep your Management Information System (MIS) as the central point of truth for user information so you only have to manage that data in the one place you always have done, and it will synchronise with the other systems involved, Apple School Manager and Jamf School in this case.

The first step is to integrate your MIS data with Apple School Manager (ASM) which will create users in ASM and automatically give them a Managed Apple ID with 200GB of iCloud storage. More information about Managed Apple ID's can be found here.

Apple School Manager and federation

Best practice suggests that you also federate your Microsoft or Google domain (i.e. myschool.town.sch.uk) in ASM before you import users. This has the effect of allowing you to create Managed Apple ID's using your existing email address (i.e. user@myschool.town.sch.uk) instead of a subdomain (i.e. user@appleid.rmyschool.town.sch.uk), and allows users to sign in to their Managed Apple ID using their existing Microsoft / Google credentials. No need to remember another username and password!

More information about federation in ASM can be found here.

Management Information System to Apple School Manager

The next step is to instigate an upload of data from your MIS in to ASM. If you only have a few users this can be done manually by maintaining a set of CSV files and uploading them to Apple School Manager with an SFTP client like Filezilla, but if you have a significant number of users in your MIS we would suggest that you automate the process by subscribing to a tool like Salamander.

Here is a link to Apple's guidance on the manual process using CSVs and here is a link to a commercial package (to which we have no affiliation) that automates the process with most common MIS solutions (SIMS.Net, Bromcom, Arbor, ScholarPack, RM Integris etc).

Jamf School

Once you have a federated domain in ASM with a live data sync to your MIS, you're all set to synchronise that user data into Jamf School. The article below describes that process, and shows that you can link ASM to Jamf School before you integrated your MIS by creating users manually in Jamf School. When you eventually import users from ASM they'll match manually created users in Jamf School using the email address (see their documentation here).

Then the final step is to assign users to devices. This can be done manually or with a CSV upload, and can also be done before devices are enrolled in the MDM if you already have a list of serial numbers. Here is a link to more information on that.

Summary

1. Verify domain in ASM
2. Federate domain in ASM
3. Synchronise MIS with ASM (using CSV files or a tool like Salamander)
4. Integrate ASM in to Jamf School
5. Assign devices to users in Jamf School

Steps 1 - 3 should be done in order if you’re using federated authentication with Microsoft or Google, but you can skip ahead to steps 4 and 5 if you're happy to create manual users in Jamf School and integrate with your MIS at a later date. Just remember to use accurate email addresses for future matching.

And that's it. You should now be up and running with MIS and Apple School Manager integration in Jamf School. If you have any questions about this process please reach our to our specialist education team on edsales@krcs.co.uk