Connect your district’s IdP and SIS to Apple School Manager
After your organization is enrolled in Apple School Manager, you can start linking your Identity Provider (IdP) and your Student Information System (SIS) to it.
Connect to an Identity Provider (IdP)
If your school is using Google Workspace or Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) as your identity provider, you can set up a direct connection to Apple School Manager to provide access to Apple services for your users. Azure AD can then authenticate users for Apple School Manager so teachers and students can sign in to their Managed Apple ID accounts using their existing Google Workspace or Azure AD credentials.
Because Apple School Manager supports Azure AD, other IdPs that connect to Azure AD—like Active Directory Federated Services (ADFS)—also work with Apple School Manager. And because most MDM solutions work with IdPs to leverage your user directories and groups, federated authentication allows the MDM solution to prompt users for their user name and password when enrolling in MDM, and to automatically associate users with devices.
For more information, see Intro to federated authentication, Sync users from Google Workspace, and Sync users from Azure AD in the Apple School Manager User Guide and see the video About Federated Authentication.
Connect to a Student Information System (SIS)
A Student Information System (SIS) is what many districts use to manage student data—everything from enrollment, to class rosters, to transcripts. Depending on which SIS you use, Apple School Manager may be able to directly connect with it. SIS integration allows Apple School Manager to copy enrollment information for the Classroom and Schoolwork apps.
After you’ve authenticated and connected your SIS, specific information—such as management, staff, instructor, student names, classes, and rosters—is copied into Apple School Manager. You can then assign roles to your staff, instructors, and students and set their initial passwords. Apple School Manager periodically updates changes from your SIS. At no time is data written back to your SIS. You can also use the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to upload all the .csv files from your Student Information System (SIS) to Apple School Manager.
For more information, see Integrate Apple School Manager with your Student Information System (SIS), and see Import accounts using SFTP in the Apple School Manager User Guide.
By connecting your district’s IdP and SIS to Apple School Manager, a Managed Apple ID is automatically created for everyone in your organization, including school management, staff, teachers, and students. Apple School Manager also tracks changes to classes and teachers throughout the year, so if a student adds a class two weeks into the year, the class’s enrollment is automatically updated.
For more information, see the video SIS Integration and the video Using SFTP to Create Accounts.