Installing and verifying Securly Classroom macOS agent (Beta)

Enhanced macOS Support for Securly Classroom is currently available in beta. If you’ve signed up and qualified for the beta program, Securly will provide a PKG installer file that can be distributed and installed on your school/district’s Mac devices through an MDM. You should also install a privacy profile to simplify deployment. Lastly, it also recommended to configure parental controls to always allow Classroom on your student devices.

Installing and verifying your pkg file

1. Install the pkg.
2. Reboot the machine
3. See that the Securly Classroom icon shows up in the Notification Tray.
   
4. Go to Rostered Students ( Users > Students).
   1. Update the username field to match the Account Name (SAMAccountName) in use for the student account
   2. Restart the machine
5. Be sure the username field matches the Account Name (SAMAccountName) you are using for your student login.
6. Be sure all username fields are populated in Rostered Students.
7. If all data is correct, you can start class in the same way as with the Chrome Extension.

Note: If you are creating a student manually or you need to update a username, you will need to restart the student machine before the change will take effect.

MDM Instructions 

1. Install the Mac Cloud Connector onto students’ Mac devices using a third-party deployment tool (e.g. Casper, Jamf, or Apple Remote Desktop). Or check out these articles for MDM-specific instructions:
   • Casper Suite / JAMF
   • AirWatch / VMware
2. Login to your third-party software as an Administrator.
3. Ensure that the machines to which you’re deploying the Classroom Agents have the same user credentials as the deployment tool you’re using.
4. Create a new Package you will deploy to student devices.
5. Add the macOs ClassroomInstall.pkg file to the new Package.
6. Identify the shared network path for the Package you will deploy.
7. Deploy the new Package to your students’ macOS devices.
8. Verify that the Classroom icon appears in the system tray of the macOS device after installation.

Note: If the icon does not appear, please contact Support for assistance.

Deploying MDM privacy profile

To effectively automate student devices, Securly Classroom needs the Automation, Accessibility, and Screen Recording permissions to be enabled. An MDM privacy profile can automate the first two. The last can only be updated via user intervention on each machine.

As the Screen Recording permission (the one used to allow screenshots) is bound to all users of the device, schools do have a choice for how they want this setting to be managed.

Admin Only: In this scenario, admins would update each device to ensure that students are unable to change this permission. This is labor-intensive but locked down. Click here to download the Admin only privacy profile.

Admin or Students: In this scenario, teachers instruct students on how to enable this permission. Please note that in this configuration, students will then be able to remove this permission. Such matters should be handled by instructing students in your district’s Acceptable Use Policy. This scales more easily, but it requires coordination. Click here to download the privacy profile suitable for both admins or students.

Note, machines can switch between these configurations by changing which profile is assigned.

To deploy the privacy profile:

1. Login to your MDM.
2. Click Computers.
3. Click Configuration Profiles.
4. Click Upload.
5. Upload the Securly_Classroom-screenrecording.mobileconfig file.
6. Click the Scope tab.
7. Set Target Computers to your Computer Group (from step 3).

The screenrecording.mobileconfig files for admin only and one for admin/students are also provided in the onboarding email for the beta program.

Configuring device settings

Based on your school's macOS configurations, Parental Controls may cause a message on some students' devices that says "You do not have access to update Classroom." To resolve this message, be sure Classroom is always allowed in your Parental Control settings. These settings may exist in your MDM, or locally on the device.

To disable Parental Controls on your students’ Mac devices; review the options below:

Option 1: Parental Controls exist in third-party deployment software.

• Login to your third-party software as an Administrator.
• Access the device management settings.
• Turn off Parental Controls.

Option 2: Parental Control settings exist locally on the Mac device.

• Click the Apple icon.
• Click Mac System Preferences.
• Click Parental Controls.
• Click the lock icon from the Parental Controls window and enter your Administrator credentials.
• Select the User account for which you want Parental Controls disabled.
• Select Turn Off Parental Controls.