Simplified iOS device management with Microsoft's Intune for Education

Microsoft Intune for Education continues to deliver new and exciting iOS management capabilities that make it easier than ever for IT administrators to manage classroom devices from one unified console.

Students often require different devices depending on the different stages in their development at school. And with the heavy use of iPads in early learning classrooms, Microsoft has continued to invest in broadening the iOS device management capabilities in Intune for Education. This not only ensures schools can easily support their students’ technology needs, but administrators can now centralize and streamline management across iOS and Windows devices to deliver a great classroom experience regardless of the device.

Let’s look at some of the exciting new features for iOS device management released recently, and what else is coming soon!

Microsoft is dedicated to making device configuration simple for our Education customers. In the past few months, we've added several new features in Intune for Education to make initial setup of iOS devices quick and easy. Intune for Education helps you connect your Intune and Apple School Manager accounts and now when you set up an MDM server token in Intune for Education, Intune for Education automatically configures enrollment settings, so the devices associated with the MDM Server Token have fewer Setup Assistant screens to tap through. This makes enrollment even faster. We've also added a customizable iOS device naming format. By default, devices enrolled using enrollment program tokens are given the same name, e.g. “iPad” or “iPhone”, but we know it's important for devices to have unique names so you can easily differentiate and group them in Intune for Education. Now you can do this easily with Intune for Education. We've also added the ability to enroll your iOS devices with Shared iPad features enabled. Shared iPad is an iOS feature that requires students and teachers to sign in to school devices with a Managed Apple ID. They can sign in and out of any enabled device in the school to access saved and in-progress work, apps, and tasks. The last piece of getting iOS devices up and running in a quick and easy way is using Intune for Education's Express Configuration to quickly set up apps and settings on groups of devices. Express configuration features the settings that are essential to get a group of devices ready for the classroom. We continually adjust this list, so you will see some settings move out of Express Configuration and some new settings moved in. You can always find all the available settings for iOS devices in Intune for Education in Groups > Settings > iOS Device Settings.

New improvements to Apple VPP support and management have also been a big area of focus, enabling you to sync your VPP-purchased apps with Intune for Education, as well as assign these apps directly from the Intune for Education dashboard. You’ll also notice that we now display location information for your Apple School Manager VPP tokens so that you can easily identify them from both Intune for Education and Apple School Manager. You can give your VPP tokens nicknames in Intune for Education for easy labeling and organization.

Coming soon: you'll be able to restrict which admins have access to specific VPP tokens based on Intune role assignments. We know this is crucial when certain classrooms are trying to use specialized iOS apps and you want to make sure only the right people have access.

As we continue to add new settings, feedback from our education partners and customers has been amazingly helpful. For example, we've heard from many schools that it is important to be able to configure custom wallpaper and lock screen images on school devices. And now it’s possible through Intune for Education! We've also added some settings that give more control over how the iOS Classroom app is used. Coming later on: so you can configure the app through Intune for Education. We will also be adding a feature that helps you easily configure a custom Home Screen layout for classroom devices.

Microsoft is committed to delivering rich and seamless device management that enhances classroom experiences and learning. We know iPads are one such device, so we continue to invest heavily in new features to make iOS devices quick and easy to manage.

To learn more about Microsoft support for iOS devices please visit the Intune for Education doc site, or if you have questions or feedback please comment below.