Upgrade your institution to Apple School Manager

Upgrade to Apple School Manager from Apple Deployment Programs, including the Device Enrollment Program (DEP) and Volume Purchase Program (VPP). 

If your organization currently uses Apple Deployment Programs like DEP or VPP, you can upgrade to Apple School Manager. 

Apple School Manager is a service that lets you buy content, configure automatic device enrollment in your mobile device management (MDM) solution, and create accounts for your students and staff. Apple School Manager is accessible on the web and is designed for technology managers, IT administrators, staff, and instructors.

Upgrade to Apple School Manager

To upgrade, log in to deploy.apple.com or school.apple.com using your Apple Deployment Programs Agent account, then follow the onscreen instructions.*

After you upgrade, Apple School Manager will have all of your:

  • Accounts
  • Account credentials  
  • MDM servers
  • MDM devices
  • Server tokens
  • Device orders
  • Other items associated with your account 

After you complete the upgrade, use the Apple School Manager portal to access your data. You won’t have access to the Apple Deployment Programs website after you upgrade.

Choose a domain for Managed Apple IDs

After you upgrade to Apple School Manager, you'll be asked to enter your school’s website. Apple School Manager uses the school website for your Managed Apple IDs. For example, if your website is www.myschool.edu, your Managed Apple IDs will look like student@appleid.myschool.edu.

If your website domain is different from your email domain, you might prefer to enter your email domain instead. Your Apple School Manager admin can change the default domain after upgrading.

Invite VPP Program Purchasers to Apple School Manager

Your school might have one or more separate Volume Purchase Program (VPP) accounts. If your school has these accounts, after you upgrade to Apple School Manager, you must invite them separately from your users. Learn how to invite VPP Program Purchasers to Apple School Manager.

Changes to roles for Apple School Manager

Apple School Manager introduces some changes to the roles that you assign to your users.

Agent is now Administrator

With Apple Deployment Programs, Agent was the highest level of administrative access. Agents had the ability to accept the Apple Deployment Programs Terms and Conditions on behalf of your institution. 

In Apple School Manager, this role is now called Administrator. Your institution can have up to five Administrators in Apple School Manager.

Admins are now Managers

With Apple Deployment Programs, there were Admins for DEP, VPP, and Apple ID for Students. With Apple School Manager, Admins are now called Managers.

The type of Admin a user is converted to depends on their responsibilities:

Role in Apple Deployment Programs

Role in Apple School Manager

DEP Admin

Device Manager

VPP Admin

Content Manager

Apple ID for Students Program Admin

People Manager

Any Apple Deployment Programs Admin that had the ability to create other Admins becomes a People Manager in Apple School Manager.

A single user can have multiple roles in Apple School Manager. If your user was an Admin for more than one program, they’ll be assigned all roles that apply in Apple School Manager. The Administrator or Site Manager can add, remove, or change Manager roles after you upgrade.

Managed Apple IDs for all roles

When your previous Agent and Admins log in to Apple School Manager for the first time, their Apple IDs are converted into Managed Apple IDs. If their accounts weren’t previously set up with two-factor authentication, they should set it up at that time. 

Learn more

*To upgrade with a Mac, use Safari version 8 or later. For PC users, make sure that you have Microsoft Edge version 25.10 or later.

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