Earlier this week, Apple announced multiple new updates for its education offering, including Apple Teacher Portfolio, remote support in Apple Classroom, a Mac Catalyst version of Apple Classroom, and new updates to the Everyone Can Create curriculum. Apple is also releasing Apple School Manager integration with Claris Connect in the coming weeks. Claris Connect first launched in beta in 2019.
Claris is a subsidiary of Apple that is best known for making the FileMaker application. Claris Connect is a tool to bring your apps together to create powerful automated workflows without knowing how to build the connections. It can build connections like receiving a Slack notification for a new Typeform entry or automatically adding an Eventbrite ticket sale to MailChimp. Over 14,000 K-12 are already using Claris today.
When Apple School Manager originally launched, it included a handful of integrations, but most schools have relied on SFTP uploads to get their student data from their School Infomation System into Apple School Manager for the creation of Managed Apple IDs. Claris Connects builds upon this SFTP integration with pre-built templates for connecting these compatible SIS vendors to Apple School Manager. Once the integration is configured, Claris Connect will be able to import a school’s data into Apple School Manager in just a few minutes. As the data changes on the SIS side, Claris Connects will facilitate automatically updating the data.
While there are a handful of major SIS vendors, there are many smaller vendors that make up a larger market share. Rather than building all the integrations through Apple School Manager, Apple is leveraging Claris Connect’s existing technology and relationships to build the connections to the SIS vendors to automatically provision Managed Apple IDs when students are enrolled in the school. Once Managed IDs are created, students will have access to all of Apple’s education apps and services, including Schoolwork, Classroom, 200GB iCloud Storage, and shared iPad.
The integration is coming soon with Aeries, Follet Aspen, or Skyward SIS. Claris Connect will be available at no cost for schools using Apple School Manager to deploy Apple devices.
9to5Mac’s Take on Claris Connects Integration
Apple’s step to further streamline deploying iOS and macOS in K-12 is a huge win for IT administrators everywhere. So much of the deployment process for iOS and macOS today revolves around connecting accounts to devices. Apple School Manager is a single piece of the IT department’s management ecosystem. By making it easier for a school to connect its SIS database to Apple School Manager, schools can focus more on using iPads to learn rather than spend their time getting the devices provisioned. The timing for Apple schools lines up perfectly for the 2021-2022 school year.
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