Apple School Manager - Introduction and Migration Guide

What is Apple School Manager?

Apple School Manager (ASM) is the hub for your Apple ecosystem in school, and every school with Apple technology should have an account. It’s split in to four sections:

Institution

Operate one ASM account for a group of schools and benefit from the ability to transfer devices and software licenses across locations with a few clicks.

People

Integrate with your Azure Active Directory to create Managed Apple ID’s, or better still integrate with your existing schools information system to synchronise pupil, staff and class data to streamline the setup of tools like Apple Classroom.

Devices

Hardware serial numbers are registered to your unique Organisation ID allowing you to assign them to your management platform (MDM) of choice automatically when activated.

Content

Centralised management of App & Book Store purchases for iPadOS, iOS, macOS and tvOS

How to get an Apple School Manager account

This varies depending on whether or not your school has ever had an Apple deployment account before.

An Apple deployment account is accessed via deploy.apple.com and will have been used by your institution for the purchasing of app store licenses (VPP - Volume Purchase Program) and/or the configuration of automatic device management (DEP - Device Enrollment Program).

If you haven’t used Apple Deployment Programs before:

Head to school.apple.com and click the link to enrol your institution.

The first stage of this process involves inputting your details, or details for the administrator of your Apple School Manager account. Our advise here is to use a generic email account rather than one named after an individual to save any complications further down the line (i.e. asm.admin@myschool.sch.uk instead of jonny.appleseed@myschool.sch.uk).

Then enter the details of a verification contact at your school, for example the Headteacher or Business Manager. Apple will get in touch with your verification contact by phone, then send an email requesting that a unique link is clicked to complete the new account setup.

The administrator will then receive a confirmation email from Apple allowing them to setup security on their new Apple ID and login to Apple School Manager

You must be able to receive emails to both the administrator and verification contact email addresses, and be sure to check for communication on a regular basis (don’t forget the junk folder!).

If you’ve already got a DEP or VPP account

Your ‘Agent’ (master account) needs to login to deploy.apple.com and follow the links to upgrade the account to Apple School Manager.

Only your Agent account can initiate this migration, and they will be converted in to the ‘Administrator’ of your new Apple School Manager account.

The Agent must have enabled two factor authentication on their Apple ID to be eligible for the Apple School Manager upgrade.

Legacy Apple Deployment Programs accounts for DEP and VPP terminate on December 1st 2019, by which time all accounts must be migrated to Apple School Manager.

If you have an old VPP accounts - Pre February 2014:

If your VPP account was opened before February 2014 you will not be able to sign in to deploy.apple.com. In those circumstances that account cannot be migrated to Apple School Manager. Apply for a new school.apple.com account then follow the process to invite your legacy VPP account in to ASM.

What if I’m still not sure what to do?

It’s really important that all school using Apple devices have an Apple School Manager account, particular with legacy Apple Deployment Programs expiring at the end of 2019.

If you sign up to our FirstClass Managed Service for schools we’ll work with you on each stage of the deployment process, including the setup of your Apple School Manager account.

Alternatively get in touch with our experts on 0115 985 1797 or education@krcs.co.uk and we can point you in the right direction.