Apple School Manager release notes

Find out about the updates and changes we're making to Apple School Manager. Updates are cumulative, so when you launch Apple School Manager, it will have all of the latest features. You can see all of the features included with each release below.

October 2024

• Administrators can prevent new unmanaged Apple Accounts from being created on domains that have been verified by the organisation. Find out more

• Administrators can request that existing Apple Accounts using an organisation’s verified domain be transferred to a managed account owned by the organization or the email address associated with the account be changed to keep it personal. Find out more

June 2024

• Organisations can now turn off Activation Lock on devices they own. Find out more

• Apple School Manager now offers more ways to import Student Information System (SIS) roster data, including support for additional SIS vendors and OneRoster CSV import, as well as new features to enhance synchronisation. These enhancements use Claris Connect and include options to filter by schools and term, as well as prevent duplicate entries during the data import process. Find out more

March 2024

• Added support for allowing instructors to create and use unmanaged nearby classes instead of Apple School Manager classes in Classroom in iPadOS 17.4 and macOS 14.4 and later. Find out more

• Added support for allowing Managed Apple IDs to add student IDs or employee badges to Apple Wallet in iOS 17.4 and later. Find out more

January 2024

Added support for federating with Custom Identity Providers. Find out

December 2023

Added the ability for administrators to enable access to the Apple Developer Programme for teachers and staff.

November 2023

Access Management for Apple Services is now available and allows organisations to control which Apple services and features users can access. Find out more

May 2023

Added support for connecting to Infinite Campus using OAuth 2.0. Find out more

March 2023

Added support for organisational data sharing to sync classes and students to educational apps. Find out more

October 2022

• Added support for Sign in with Apple at Work & School. Find out more

• Added support for enabling beta features. Find out more

May 2022

• Added support for federated authentication with Google Workspace. Find out more

• Updated user interface for Preferences, Users and Devices.

October 2021

• Administrators, Site Managers or People Managers can now approve or deny Managed Apple IDs requested by instructors in the Schoolwork app. Find out more

• Administrators can enable Improving Schoolwork which allows Apple to collect data, in a non-personally identifiable way, to improve the Schoolwork app. Find out more

August 2021

Added the ability to sync Student Information System (SIS) data 30 days before the start of a term, if your SIS supports this option. Find out more

August 2020

• Support for System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM). Find out more

• Updated user interface for managing devices, including improved filtering and bulk device management.

June 2020

Added support for two new privileges to provide access to the AppleSeed for IT beta testing portal.

May 2020

Administrators can configure collaboration to automatically accept sharing between users in the same organisation. By default, this setting is disabled for all files shared by Students.

April 2020

You can now remove federated domains from Apple School Manager.

March 2020

• New domains added to Apple School Manager will have to be verified before Managed Apple IDs can be created using that domain. Find out more more

• Support for Infinite Campus OneRoster v1.1.

February 2020

Custom apps can now be purchased in Apple School Manager.

September 2019

• User Account Lookup, which is enabled by default, allows users to search for the contact information of other users and groups in your Apple School Manager organisation. Requires iOS 13, iPad OS 13 or macOS 10.15. Find out more

• You can now set nicknames for classes in Apple School Manager.

• You can choose whom users can share with using Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents, Notes, Reminders and other files in iCloud Drive. Find out more

June 2019

Apple School Manager can be used on iPad.

March 2019

Support for Federated Authentication with Microsoft Azure Active Directory. Find out more

February 2019

• The MDM Servers section is now located in the Settings tab.

• You can now configure Default Device Assignment in Settings > Device Management Settings and in Settings > MDM Servers.

January 2019

By default, Instructors can now create, edit and delete classes in Apple School Manager.

December 2018

Administrators can give Managed Apple IDs access to Apple's Data and Privacy tools at privacy.apple.com. This feature allows all accounts in the organisation to sign in and request a copy of the data stored with Apple that's associated with their managed Apple ID.

September 2018

• Manually created classes without Course information will now sync to MDM.

• tvOS apps are now available in Apps and Books.

June 2018

You can now edit the Class Name field for classes created manually or imported from SIS or SFTP.

March 2018

All Managed Apple IDs now have 200GB of iCloud storage.

January 2018

• Apps and Books in Apple School Manager now supports over 500 locations.

• Apps and Books in Apple School Manager includes several performance improvements for organisations that have a large number of locations, purchasers or licences.

• Improved App Product Review pages in Apps and Books in Apple School Manager.

• You can now submit feedback about Apple School Manager. From the top right corner, click your name, then select Provide Feedback from the menu.

November 2017

You can now make purchases and transfer licences in Apps and Books in Apple School Manager.

September 2017

• MDM servers can now be set as default based on device type. For example, you can set one server as default for Mac and another as default for iPhone and iPad.

• When you create a CSV with sign-in information for accounts, the CSV now contains Person Number and Person ID columns.

• You can now see the classes that a student or instructor is in on the Accounts page.

August 2017

• MDM Class Roster API now includes email address and SIS username for a given Apple School Manager user.

• Apple School Manager now names the Classes you manually create with a combination of the Class Number, Course Name and/or Course Number.

• Temporary passwords are now valid for 90 days.

June 2017

• When you create sign-ins for your students, you can now set the passcode to a specific value.

• You can now migrate VPP-only accounts into your Apple School Manager, even if you forgot to include them in your initial migration to Apple School Manager.

• Admins can now set the language and time zone that will be used in emails sent from Apple School Manager.

• You can now recreate previously deleted locations with the same location_id.

May 2017

• New streamlined design and user interface.

• Support for PowerSchool 9.0 SIS integration.

• Introduced Activity view, which logs all actions including those that run in the background.

• Increase support for up to 5 Administrator accounts.

• Ability to delete unused and inactive accounts.

• Improved search and filtering for accounts and classes.

• Ability to apply Managed Apple ID format changes to existing users.

• Managed Apple ID format can now include a user's SIS username.

• Password reset emails are now localised.

March 2017

• You can now assign up to 15 locations to a student or staff member, and up to 15 instructors to a class, when using SFTP to create users and classes.

• Infinite Campus SIS integration will now support multiple teachers per class.

January 2017

• Users can view and update Managed Apple ID settings by logging into the Apple ID account page, iCloud Preferences in macOS, or iCloud Settings in iOS.

December 2016

• When you create users via SFTP, you can now set the default password policy for students in the password_policy field of the Students CSV.

• Improved reliability and error reporting for SIS and SFTP connections.

November 2016

• You no longer need a unique email address associated with a Managed Apple ID. You can use an email address that is already associated with an existing Apple ID.

• Administrators, Managers and Instructors can change their personal information. To edit your account information, click your name in the top right-hand corner and choose My Profile.

• Students won't need to enter an additional 6-digit code when they log in with their Managed Apple ID on a Mac that belongs to the school.

• Administrators and Managers can re-download SFTP templates from the Location information tab.

• Link your iTunes U Public Site with Apple School Manager with the new iTunes U tab.

October 2016

• When you create users via SFTP, you can now include the sis_username.

• When you create classes via SFTP, you can now specify up to three instructors.

• When you use SFTP, you can now upload semicolon-delimited CSV files.

• Updated template files for SFTP uploads to contain more example data. Find out how to use and upload the SFTP templates.

September 2016

• You can now create a class using SFTP or your SIS with no instructors attached to it. If there aren't any instructors, students must be attached to that class. There can't be a class that doesn't have any instructors nor students.

• Students created using SFTP now inherit the default password policy for the location they're assigned to. Find out about the password_policy field in the Students CSV.

  • This feature was updated in December 2016.

• Resolved issues with saving changes to your location name.

• Apple School Manager now provides you a list of which users were created without an associated email address.

• Within the Location information tab, Administrators, Site Managers, People Managers and any Manager at Headquarters can now see a history of student accounts that have been inspected.

• Locations can now be deleted if no staff, students and classes are attached to them.

• Setup Assistant (Step 3) displays an improved estimate of time to create Managed Apple IDs.

• Improved reporting of SFTP connection errors.

• When you email usernames and passwords in bulk, all recipients successfully receive their credentials.

August 2016

• Support for Infinite Campus version 1629 or later.

• Managed Apple IDs can now be generated by uploading CSV files via SFTP. This replaced manual uploads in the Apple School Manager portal.

• New CSV templates based on common SIS export options.

• SFTP connection status indicated in Apple School Manager.

• Additional options to customise Managed Apple ID formats by adding separators or text between tokens.

• Support for organisations with more than 50,000 Managed Apple IDs.

• Administrators and Managers can now reset the verification phone numbers for the users they manage.

• 'New' and 'Active' badges in Apple School Manager help identify users who have not yet logged into their account.

• Improvements to Roles UI to clarify account privileges.