Screen Time

[Jared-SOESD]

I deploy student iPads with some pretty heavy restrictions. I use school.apple.com to create the Apple ID for each iPad. By heavy restrictions, a lot of the students are special needs, so we are handing out iPads where they really can only access the apps they need.

I could untag the student profile, have the teacher modify the Screen Time settings as needed, then put the student profile back, but that would require coordination with the teacher and a time when the iPad is not being used.

I cannot find Screen Time, screentime, or any of the like in any of the MDM settings. The best guess Meraki MDM gives me is screen lock. What do I need to check/uncheck to allow Screen Time to be modified without having full access to the account info and all that other nonsense students don't need access to?

Thank you.

[BlakeRichardson]

@Jared-SOESD This below post is the best I have been able to find.

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Mobile-Device-Management/Disable-Apple-quot-Screen-Time-quot-on-iOS/m-p/85000

[Jared-SOESD]

@BlakeRichardson yeah I've seen that. That doesn't help me which is why I created this post.

[AddInspire]

Why is this not in the 'Restrictions' section? One of our students enabled this feature and set the 'screen time' limit to one minute and yes they set an unknown passcode.

Meraki??? We need this...

[Arthur Dent]

It's there !

[AddInspire]

That did it! The iPads now show the Screen Time as not configurable.

Thanks Meraki!

[AddInspire]

I ran the 'command' Erase Device and after a restart it brought the iPad back into compliance with the Policy.

[Arthur Dent]

Sadly, there's no Apple capability that allows us to manage screen time.

The only thing I could find was the ability to manage parental control settings for the Mac

NOW: There is one thing you could do: Have you considered Kiosk / Single App mode as an alternative? This would prevent the user from using any other app on the device. The app that goes into Kiosk Mode could be a really benign app. The result being is that the user cannot use the iPad any more.

[vassallon]

Yeah it's quite the shame that Apple doesn't give MDM more options when it comes to Screen Time. I know here we just usually have to reset the device to clear screen time issues which isn't a great experience.

[BlakeRichardson]

Apple have a fine line between managing devices and user preferences which is very much a blurred line and a pain at times. What would be nice if Apple gave MDM's the ability to restrict settings but then have an override passcode that admins and trusted users can use to change settings that have been restricted.

[vassallon]

With Meraki profiles you can make custom home screens and only allow apps that you want to be seen. I've played around with some profiles and created some profiles that change and limit what an iPad can or can't do based on the version of iPadOS.

Please feel free to reach out to me directly and I can share some tips and tricks I've seen.