How to Manage Shared iPad for Business?

Does your enterprise provide company-issued iPads to your employees to work effectively and stay connected remotely? What if we tell you there’s a way to empower your employees with iPads without incurring an excessive financial burden on your company? Apple allows the use of shared iPads for business with which multiple users can use a single iPad and yet, have an exclusive and personalized user experience.

Several businesses around the world are implementing shared iPads to simplify management and reduce high investments in purchasing an iPad per employee.

Here’s everything you need to know about shared iPads for business and how you can manage them with ease.

What is a Shared iPad for Business?

The concept of shared iPads was first introduced by Apple for schools and other educational organizations to enable sharing of iPads for education using managed IDs from the Apple School Manager (ASM).

Shared iPads for business allow enterprises to enable multiple employees to share a single iPad using their managed Apple IDs from the Apple Business Manager (ABM).

How Does Shared iPads Work?

Shared iPads have isolated disk spaces assigned to multiple users and keep the user’s data completely private and encrypted. Users can access only their data and the rest of the data is hidden from them. When a user signs in with his/her managed Apple ID, their personalized profile automatically loads all the policies and restrictions that are set on his/her custom profile. On successfully signing in, the users can access all of their files, including design elements like the procreate monoline brushes, folders and data stored on the iCloud. Once the user signs out, his designated disk space is not accessible to other users.

Benefits of Shared iPads for Business

Shared iPads for businesses can be used by several industries. For example, rotational shift workers in service industries can share iPads with a custom set of policies and restrictions. Or sales executives in a retail store and use the same iPad as the retail manager to punch in sales data.

Here are the significant benefits of using shared iPads for business:

Enables Device Sharing

Shared iPads allow multiple employees to use the same iPad device and have a personalized user experience without worrying about their data privacy. Every user can only access his/her own profile and all the data is securely stored on Apple’s cloud storage.

Cost Optimization

Enterprises spend massive costs on purchasing company-issued devices for their employees. With shared iPads, enterprises can cut down costs on purchasing individual iPads for every employee.

Easy Administration

Company IT teams need to spend excessive hours managing and tracking hundreds and thousands of iPads. Shared iPads for businesses can be easily managed using MDM solutions for iOS. You can create multiple custom profiles, push custom policies and restrictions and monitor the usage of your shared iPads effectively.

Pre-requisites for Shared iPads

Implementing shared iPads is easy, you need to satisfy the following requisites before you start managing your shared iPads for Business.

• Supervised iPads with a minimum of 32 GB storage space.
• iOS version 13.4 and above.
• Managed Apple IDs owned and issued by the enterprise.
• iOS MDM solution.

Shared iPads for Business are supported by All iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation or above, iPad Air 2 or above and iPad mini 4th generation or above.

How to Manage Shared iPads for Business with Scalefusion MDM

Despite the advantages that shared iPads bring to the table, there are several challenges that emerge when deploying shared iPads. Ensuring the protection of the enormous amounts of corporate data stored on the shared devices, managing storage space, pushing customized device profiles and policies for different users, etc. can make managing shared iPads a tedious process for your IT teams. Scalefusion MDM helps company IT teams manage their shared iPads, push security policies and monitor the usage of your company-issued iPads.

Here’s how Scalefusion MDM simplifies the management of shared iPads for business:

1. Better User Management

With Scalefusion MDM, you can have a better view of your device performance, health and security. Shared iPads have multiple users logging into the device at various times. Keeping track of multiple device profiles effectively using a single dashboard is streamlined via the Scalefusion dashboard. Scalefusion also extends bulk, out-of-the box enrollment of iPads via Apple DEP and Apple Business Manager, which can help in reducing the cognitive load to provision the iPads individually.

2. Enhanced Data Security

You can push extensive security settings on your diverse device profiles to define the scope of usage of your shared iPads. Scalefusion lets you configure network settings to configure WiFi or hotspot on your iPads. You can also configure Safari settings, Siri and iCloud settings on your iPads. Further, you can restrict the use of AirDrop, iMessage, Touchscreen ID, iTunes and file sharing on your iPads to ensure that your devices are used in sync with your company policies.

3. Effective Monitoring

You can obtain highly detailed reports based on the usage patterns of your iPads. Scalefusion lets you obtain extensive device-level reports based on location, geofence logs, app versions, device availability, FileDock analytics and device health. You can also schedule reports for a particular time frame and get alerts over emails.

4. Scheduling Tasks

You can leverage Scalefusion Workflows to automate your recurring IT tasks that help you to simplify your shared iPad management and compliance monitoring. Scalefusion allows you to configure alerts based on storage space, data consumption and battery usage. You can also schedule activities like profile switches, device reboots and app publishing to specific profiles.

Closing Lines

Shared iPads for businesses are being rapidly deployed to cut costs. And why not? It’s a smart way to reduce outright investment in mobile devices without compromising on the operational efficiency that these devices bring in. The key to efficiently managing your shared iPads and tackling the challenges associated with them is to implement a powerful iOS MDM solution. And with Scalefusion, it’s easy, it’s effective, and it’s reliable.