Learn about Custom Apps in Apple School Manager
Custom Apps are apps developed to meet your organisation’s specific educational needs. The apps are developed either by you or by a third-party developer. They’re distributed privately and securely to members of your organisation through Apple School Manager. Your developers submit Custom Apps through App Store Connect and assign the apps to your Apple School Manager account. After the apps are approved, they’re available to your organisation, so that only you can view and access them from Apps and Books in the sidebar.
Custom Apps allow you to leverage the scale and ease of use of the App Store while also providing:
security features for sensitive or private school data
a tailored look and feel, such as your school logo or branding
Unique features for students and instructors within your organisation
specific functionality for a class or workflow
special configuration for IT environments
Purchase Custom App licences
Before you can purchase Custom Apps, you must first enable the ability to search for them for your organisation. See Enable Custom Apps.
In Apple School Manager
, sign in as a user that has privileges to purchase content.To view and edit who can purchase content, see Role privileges.
Tap Apps and Books
in the sidebar, tap Store, then tap View Store to open the Apps and Books Store.Tap the Custom Apps tab to view the Custom Apps assigned to your organisation.
Select the location where the Custom App licences will be initially assigned.
Important information about Custom Apps
App review: Each Custom App, as well as each updated version submitted for custom distribution, goes through the app review process with Apple. The same app review guidelines for App Store apps apply to Custom Apps. The review process typically takes up to two days. See the App Review website on the Apple Developer website.
App security: If your app contains or provides access to sensitive business data, you should include an authentication mechanism within the app. Apple highly recommends using best practices for in-app authentication and encryption. See the Security Framework article on the Apple Developer website.
App verification: To verify that Custom Apps meet the review guidelines, Apple needs to sign in and operate the app. Work with your developer or partner to determine how to meet this requirement with appropriate handling of proprietary or sensitive business data. To protect confidentiality for the purposes of app review, provide generic test accounts or sanitised sample data.
Distribution: Custom Apps are distributed privately within the Apps section of Apple School Manager. IT teams can leverage the same app distribution model as App Store apps, including device-based assignments and managed app capabilities. Developers designate organisations that are allowed to access the app and can privately distribute it to a specific organisation. If you’re supporting a global user base, it’s important to mark the app as globally available when submitting through App Store Connect.