Success Story
How a Manhattan K–12 School Streamlined Apple Device Management with Addigy
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Success Story
How a Manhattan K–12 School Streamlined Apple Device Management with Addigy
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On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a private pre-K–12 school serves 520 students and 200 staff across a two-building campus. This three-person IT team manages roughly 300 Macs and 300 iOS devices — including iPads, iPhones, and an Apple TV in every classroom.
To hear about the team’s recent migration to Addigy, we spoke with Alison, the school’s IT Director. A 20-year Apple enthusiast who previously helped lead device programs in a public system of 8,000 students, Alison joined the school two years ago and recently led its MDM evaluation.
With renewal approaching on her legacy MDM, Alison needed a platform that paired powerful management with a fast learning curve, a cleaner identity experience, and native remote support. She found it in Addigy — and had the entire environment stand up in under two hours.
The Problem
A Legacy MDM That No Longer Fit a Lean K–12 Team
As a longtime Apple power user, Alison was familiar with JAMF as a major enterprise MDM platform. But as her team’s renewal approached, she found her incumbent tool no longer matched the school’s day-to-day needs.
Three challenges stood out:
1 | Identity and login friction. The school is a Google shop, and integrating Google identity with macOS through the legacy tool’s connector had grown fragile. Daily, staff were being prompted for credentials, and password changes caused sync issues between Google and local accounts — eating into IT time for weeks.
2 | A steep learning curve. Getting the legacy identity connector configured had taken 2.5 weeks of focused effort — time a three-person IT team managing 600+ devices could not afford to repeat with every change.
3 | No native live support tools. Helping a teacher mid-lesson on the ninth floor — or in the second building — meant a 15-minute walk each way. The previous MDM required a separate third-party tool for live remote control, adding cost and complexity.
With renewal approaching, Alison evaluated several alternatives. None delivered the blend of usability and depth she wanted.. until she tried Addigy.
The Solution
An Intuitive MDM With Native Identity + Live Tools
Alison started a trial and had the school’s full environment configured in under two hours — without ever having used the product.
It took me 2.5 weeks to understand the legacy connector. I had Addigy up and running in under two hours, without ever having seen it before. You don’t need a PhD.
Addigy Identity gave the team a clean, Google-native login experience that “looks like part of the OS.” And because live remote support is built directly into Addigy, the IT team could solve small issues in seconds, from their desks, without interrupting class time.
Today, Addigy helps the school:
- Customize the end-user experience with branded icons and configurations that feel native to macOS and iOS
- Enroll and manage 300 Macs, 300 iOS devices, and classroom Apple TVs all in one place
- Deliver a unified Google-based login experience for staff through Addigy Identity
- Support end users in real time with built-in remote screen sharing and live management
- Layer policies across students, staff, and classrooms through a clean, intuitive UI
It took me 2.5 weeks to understand the legacy connector. I had Addigy up and running in under two hours, without ever having seen it before. You don’t need a PhD.
Addigy does everything our previous tool did — and I haven’t found a single limitation yet. The UI is better, the onboarding is faster, and the end-user experience is cleaner.
The Results
Hours Reclaimed Every Week — and Instructional Time Protected
Since migrating, Alison has given her three-person team time back, and restored instructional time in the classroom.
- A better experience for teachers and students. Built-in live support lets IT help without interrupting the classroom — a meaningful difference during back-to-school deployments and parent-teacher conferences.
- Faster resolution. Issues that used to require a 15-minute walk across nine floors are now resolved remotely in minutes – “sometimes as little as 30 seconds” – with no disruption to the lesson.
- Fewer identity headaches. Daily password-sync tickets have quieted. Users get a cleaner single sign-on experience tied to Google.
- Minutes to deploy, not weeks. Configuration changes that used to require extended testing now roll out quickly.
About Addigy
Businesses and schools rely on Addigy to manage and secure their growing fleets of Apple macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices at the speed of now. Addigy is the only solution that delivers real-time, continuously connected Apple device management with support for both Apple MDM and DDM. Robust compliance, non-invasive management, and a simple user interface empower IT teams to manage distributed environments at scale
