Profiles are what we use to set up defined configurations that include web filtering settings as well as device restrictions and application management. Once configured, these profiles will apply to devices currently enrolled on the dashboard. You can set up profiles for all enrolled devices including those for teachers and any staff.
Profiles are also used during classes and can be configured by the teachers during their lessons, as well as by your student's parents using the Mobile Guardian for Home product.
What you will learn?
- Profile Overview and how to configure profiles
- Defining the Baseline and conditional profiles and how they work together
- Best Practice setups when configuring your profiles
Use the below navigation if you would like to skip to a specific section.
- Mobile Guardian Profiles Overview
- District Profiles
- School Profiles
- Teacher Profiles
- Parent Rules
- Best Practices
Mobile Guardian Profiles Overview
A profile is a set of pre-defined configurations. Configuring profiles correctly so that they apply to the correct devices at the desired times and locations is very important. We have 2 basic profiles, we have a baseline and a conditional.
The baseline is the "safety net" and will be active on all devices that are enrolled on the dashboard by default. It is like your foundation where you build on, it provides a base set of configurations you want all the devices to have by default. Settings defined in the baseline will be overridden by settings in a conditional profile unless those settings have been locked.
The conditional profile differs from a baseline as it contains finer levels of configurations and restrictions. It can be removed and added to whichever devices you configure and are usually configured for a specific set of devices and not for all devices
Please note: All Devices will have a baseline, but they may not always have a conditional.
1. The Baseline Profile
The Baseline Profile is the profile applied to the device when no other profile is currently being applied. Some refer to it as the safety net Profile. In a Baseline profile, only the "What" can be configured as it is fixed at being applied anywhere and anytime, but the configurations can be adjusted to make sure that, outside of all other created profiles the device is adhering to a set of minimum restrictions.
2. The Conditional Profile
The Conditional profile is where the flexibility is built in regarding locations (geo-fencing) and day and time configurations. There is no limit to the number of Conditional profiles that a school administrator can create.
The "Where" can be configured based on coordinates, wifi SSID, Beacon and IP range, so that when the device enters the specific geo-fence then that Conditional profile will apply. Examples of these are Classroom beacons, School location coordinates, Science block wifi, or the school network IP range, etc. and the device will let Mobile Guardian know where it is and then the correct Conditional profile will be applied to the device.
The "When" determines the date range, which days of the week and what times of the day to apply the Conditional profile. These schedules can be created and found under "settings" > "Time and Date settings"
The "Which" allows the administrator to determine which devices to apply the Conditional profile to. These can be assigned by Home-owned, School-owned or All filters, or they can be assigned by tags.
The "What" section shows the same sections which are configurable as shown in the Baseline profile above. The administrator can configure completely different restrictions and settings here and the device will switch in and out of profiles (either Conditional and/or Baseline) based on the configured settings.
The administrator can view all profiles created from the Profiles section. All profiles are editable and can be changed at any time. Mobile Guardian recommends setting up a defined structure for how to create and manage profiles as, if left unmanaged, they could become difficult to maintain and understand. The simpler the better.
Now that we know the basics of profiles and what we can do with them, we can discuss their implications for each type of dashboard starting with the District profile and ending with Parent profiles.
District Profiles
District Profiles provide you with the ability to create a standard baseline, and conditional profiles to form Profile Groups to push down to a set of schools rather than creating the same baseline and conditional for each of the schools that are within your district. This allows you to centrally manage the settings and push them down to a set of schools with a push of a button.
For more information on how to set up District Profiles, the benefits of using them and other features that apply to District profiles, please see the articles below:
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000551065-District-profile-management
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001389965-Profile-Groups
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001382389-Hierarchical-Profile-Locks
School Profiles
In the school dashboard you have the ability to create a single baseline and as many conditionals as you require, but do be careful if you have too many it can become difficult to manage without strict standards.
For a School Admin, it is important to put thought into each aspect of the profile set up starting with the Baseline Profile. There are many options you may select and configure for your devices.
Profiles can be applied using tags, home-owned ( if you have BYOD devices or parent devices in your school) or school-owned. You can even apply to both Home-owned and School-owned.
With School profiles, the baseline will be on all devices and this is why we call it the Safety Net profile, as if for any reason, the device is not on a conditional profile it will default to the baseline. This is why it is important to make sure that your baseline has the minimum level of configurations you will allow on your devices to ensure they are safe and meet your standards.
Please see below some articles that may assist you when setting up your school profiles for the first time:
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003402265-Add-a-New-Profile
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003393909-How-to-create-a-zone
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003401505-Add-date-and-time-settings-schedules-
Teacher Profiles
When using our Classroom product you will be able to create classes and create teacher users to assign to these classes.
When a teacher has created a class or has been assigned to one. They will be able to login to the Mobile Guardian dashboard as a teacher and will be taken to the teacher dashboard where they will see the list of classes they have. They may also create new classes. Please see below the below article on how to create classes, and the proceeding section should you want to know more:
https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/sections/360000943759-Setting-up-your-class
Now once a teacher selects a class they are given an opportunity to add content and filtering to their class which will apply to all devices that have joined the class. Once a device enters the virtual "classroom" the teacher class profile will then apply to the device acting in a similar fashion to a conditional profile.
You will see when a device enters the classroom the active profile will change to the name of the class:
once the class ends the device will revert back to the school conditional or baseline depending on the rules set out by the school admin in the profiles.
Parent Rules
When a device is being used at home and is a home-owned/BYOD device you will need to set up your school profiles with the correct time, date and location settings to allow parents to take over the device after school hours are finished or when the device is no longer on school grounds.
You will need to make sure that when your devices leave the school that they are no longer applying your conditional profiles. This can be done by location or time.
Please see below what the profile looks like for a parent when the device is at school and on your school profiles, it will display with the Active Profile: "Name of profile" (school) for the parent dashboard.
View from the Parent Dashboard
Below you can see what it looks like once the parent rules are applied for that student and their device successfully:
View from parent dashboard once the device has switched to parent rules:
For a school Admin a common use of Parent accounts is allowing the monitoring of devices that leave the school and go home with a child when school ends for the day.
Please see how the School dashboard indicates in the device information when it is linked to a parent account, you can also unlink the device from here if need be:
and from the device list, this is how the device looks when the parent rule profile is active:
Best Practices
From an Admin Standpoint when working with profile switching for all the above profiles it is important to make sure you have done the below if necessary to avoid any profiles not switching correctly as per time, date or any other restrictions you have set.
- Time Zone - It is important with Profile switching that you make sure that the timezone is set and that the school hours are correct.
- Network settings - settings that restrict network access such as iOS restrictions to disallow connecting to networks that are not set up on the profile currently applied can cause problems if the devices are not given time on the network to switch from one profile to the next. If you would like to use this setting, please make sure you give the devices enough time on your network to speak to the dashboard and make changes to profiles if necessary or your devices will be stuck in the last profile applied since they are not able to connect to any other networks to update as per the profile restrictions.
- School Hours and Parent profile switching- When using Parent Profiles. You will need to set a schedule that your profiles will abide by when active and if the devices are linked to parent accounts, the profile will switch to the parent's child restrictions when the school hours are over. Please see this article for more information on how to set up Schedules for profiles: https://help.mobileguardian.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003401505-Add-date-and-time-settings-schedules-
- Location - Increase the settings in global preferences for Minimum location accuracy, we recommend using a location accuracy of at least 500 meters, anything less could cause issues of the devices not switching profiles by location.
- Profile Priority - If you have more than one conditional profile configured a device. Remember that profiles will be applied based on priority, in descending order. To reorder profiles you may just select the move icon and drag it into whichever position you would like it to be in the list of conditionals.
- Baseline - As this is a catchall, as an admin you should make it the most restrictive profile
Congratulations on understanding how profiles work.
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