Enabling Find my iPhone

[ceotechtate]

Is there anyway of adding 100+ ipads to one central ipad to utilise the find my iphone/ipad feature?
Currently the Find my Iphone option is disabled for all iPads, is there a way to enable it?

I work at primary schools, and a few iPads have gone walkabouts somewhere in the school (as we can still see them on the network) so would be ideal to be able to locate exactly where they are

[LukeDC]

Are they supervised? If so just use Lost Mode, it is the equivalent to find my iphone but for MDM.

[aong96]

Hi Luke, would like to ask you, how does the Enable Lost mode in Airwatch show where the iPad is located if the user lost or misplaced the iPad?
Done a test, i can only lock and send a message to the ipad.

Is the accuracy is the same as Find my Iphone? I find that the ' Location'  function in the Airwatch is not that accurate compare to find my iPhone.
I am having a new batch of 100 iPads coming in, so would like to use the function rather than using the Apple ID to login to the ipad individually

thanks

[LukeDC]

Hi Adrian, you'll have to use DEP to enroll them or use Apple Configurator to supervise them. Either way puts them in supervised mode (the necessary target mode) and exposes the Lost mode function to Airwatch. If someone loses a device, you enable lost mode and the device locks down and sends its location into the console. Provided you the rights to see location details based on your privacy settings for the console.

[chengtmskcc]

Spot on Luke. I did encounter an issue with Lost Mode during my testing a while back. When an Wi-Fi only device previously connected to a SSID that requires regular re-authentication received the Lost Mode command, it simply lost connection to the console and thus there was no way for us to do anything to this device both locally and remotely. We ended up doing a DFU but if this device was out in the field, we might as well mark it as lost or stolen.

[LukeDC]

That is always the danger with any MDM command and a wifi only device, losing connection to it. Your best line of defense for data protection is a solid passcode policy with a wipe after X number of failed attempts. So many places are needlessly concerned about asset recovery, when they really need to be concerned with data loss. Assets are replaceable/repairable, but a data breach is irreparable.

[chengtmskcc]

Well said Luke. A good device insurance policy goes a long way.