Checking out devices (Should know)
Checking out devices allows multiple people to use iOS devices while keeping a record of the user's application data and settings so that they can be restored. When you check out the device to someone, Configurator sets up the device to the user's saved configuration and restores application data as well as other user defined settings, if present. The check-in workflow is similar to roaming profiles in enterprise environments.
Getting ready
It has been repeated over and over but that is because it is important; a supervised device can only be configured by Apple Configurator on the Mac it was originally set up with.
How to do it...
The first thing you need to do to check out a device is get the device under supervision.
Connect your device and enter the needed information into the prepare screen.
Check the box for supervision.
Tip
All data on the device will be deleted.
When the device is under supervision, you will see a number appear next to the supervise icon.
Click on the supervision tab. You can now make more configuration changes on this screen, including applications. We get in depth with the application installation later. If you want to put Word documents, text documents, PDF files, or other objects not natively supported by iOS, you must first install an application that will open the file type. We will talk more about file additions in the later recipes.
Click on Apply.
After a device has been supervised, click on the Assign button.
On the Assign screen, you will see three columns:
Groups
Users
Documents
In this area you can populate your users by clicking on the plus button at the bottom of the file. Your users can be specific or general. You may have an accounting department that has certain needs or a grade level classroom that you want to preload with content. In that case you may want to create generic users.
To learn more about adding documents and adding files, check out the recipes that follow.
After you are ready to check out the device to a user, click on the user and then click on the Check Out button.
When you click on the Check Out button, a new screen will appear. On this screen, you can choose which device will be assigned to the user.
Click on Check Out.
To check in a device, simply plug the device back into the Mac that was originally used to configure the device. Click back to the assign pane. At the bottom, simply click on the Check In button.
By default, when you connect an iOS device that is supervised to Apple Configurator, any applications that were installed by the user will be deleted. This setting can be changed in the preferences menu by selecting Preferences... in the Apple Configurator menu.
By unchecking the last box you ensure applications as well as profiles stay on the device.
How it works...
When devices are checked back in, Configurator backs up data contained in the applications the user has interacted with.
When we think of traditional imaging, we think of reformatting hard drives, laying files on those drives, and then automating binding to a directory service and renaming computers. Imaging an iOS device is a much simpler affair. For the most part, the operating system of an iOS device never gets touched. This means there are gigabytes of data that do not need to be put on devices and that the image which we refer to as a backup on an iOS device is just what you've done to the device since opening the box or performing a factory restore.
In this section, we're going to look at creating a backup of a device and using Apple Configurator to restore that backup in a zero touch deployment model. This means plugging the device into a computer running Apple Configurator and getting a device "imaged" without touching any buttons on the computer or clicking on the device; perfect for installing a dozen or a few thousand devices in the least amount of time possible!
