About your Mac computer

This article presents some key resources to help you understand how to get the most out of your District Mac. It's always kind of under construction, so don't be afraid to check back for updates!

Identify your Mac

Some key details about your managed device, both the hardware and the current software, are useful in identifying it administratively within our fleet. The details we most care about are:

Borough Number, as per the Borough Tag sticker or etched number on the bottom of the device.
Serial Number, etched physically on the bottom of the Mac, or in the System Settings app under General > About > Serial number.
Device name, as it appears in the System Settings app under General > About > Name.
Device location. Where is the device located physically? Is it borrowed from another location, or is it a Special Services device?
Device owner. Is the device assigned 1:1 with someone? If so, who?

The quickest way to find the Serial Number and device name, if you're not locked out of the machine, is in the About This Mac dialog:

Differing versions of macOS will display this differently, with some going straight to the System Settings app, and others beginning with a summary dialog that then goes to System Settings with the More Info... button:

Note that this summary dialog also contains the model information and the current version of macOS, which can be handy!

What's on your Mac?

The District manages its relatively few Mac machines...as lightly as possible. In general, our philosophy is to give you a machine with only the minimum management footprint necessary to:

remain compliant with key security and policy details
retain management control of the machine so we can:
- recover it if you get locked out
- manage software and app updates, and support remote assistance sessions
- distribute and manage App Store apps in the catalog
- distribute profiles as necessary for additional functions (e.g. AirPrint printers) or restrictions (e.g. passcode requirement)
make available some useful tools and configuration possible with device management and user integrations (this is a landscape that we are just moving into; stay tuned as we learn more and how to do it better!)

The two most important things to understand, as the user of a District Mac, are the working local user account, and the utility app provided to the managed device.

User account. If your Mac comes from us--that is, set up for you by IT--then it will have a user account already created on it, called KPBSD User, with a default password of 000000. If you reset your own device (which is just fine; just like resetting an iPad; it will come back up and re-enroll itself with device management during its subsequent device setup), then you will be prompted during device setup to create a user account of your own, which may pre-suggest assigned user details, or may not, if there is no existing user assignment to the device. Either way, this user account that you create during device setup is an administrator-level account, so you should be able to download and run software as you need it, subject of course to policy restrictions like the Internet Use Agreement.

Jamf School Student app. As with iOS devices, our managed Macs use this App Store utility app as our "self-service" or "on-demand" apps and content resources manager. The article Use the Jamf School Student App on your iPad is also very relevant for Mac, since the app looks and behaves substantially the same as on iOS. (Note that this document may be updated if there proves to be substantial enough differences to do so, but so far, not really!)

What's a device owner?

When we refer to a "device owner", we mean a user ID recognized by the KPBSD address book. For students it's the student number; for employees it's the employee number. This user can be "assigned" to a device, administratively; in this case, the "owner" designation means that a few things that are actually user-driven rather than device-driven, become possible. (By far most administrative features are device-driven, but some examples of user-driven features are: being able to assign content-licensed books, custom pre-configuration of some apps, and some of the richer features of the "classroom" and "teacher" apps collaborating together.)

Most Apple devices currently in the District are what we would call "cart" devices, which are not assigned to a single student or staff member, and which in fact might get picked up and used by several different people on any given day. These devices would not have a device owner. There are a few true 1:1 devices out there, though, and these can benefit from having an assigned device owner.

For further questions about any of this, by all means contact the Helpdesk.

Learn more about your Mac

As mentioned above, this article will get updated, as appropriate, with the most important bits for you to know about your District macOS device, but please be aware that other articles may also appear and get updated in the District's support knowledge base too. We're always adding things to this knowledge base as we can, and that includes tidbits and details about our Apple fleet as well as Chromebooks and Windows machines.

The knowledge base is searchable from any article (including this one; look up at the very top for the search bar!), or from the support portal's entry point.

Contact the Information Services Helpdesk

Finally, remember that you can always get further help by contacting the KPBSD Information Services Helpdesk.