The meeting opened with a brief discussion about antivirus solutions. Casey will review the available options and bring these to a TEP Meeting in February.
Apple Presentation
Tinyurl.com/deployios5 - Refer to this wiki for resources used and referenced during John's presentation. Direct any outstanding questions directly to John at jlemansky [at] apple.com.
iear.org - A website that provides thorough reviews of education apps by current teachers.
Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) is approved for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Follow these links to see the document that has been posted to the COM-PASS website:
--https://www.ebidsourcing.com/
--Click on "Contracts" tab
--Click on "Search for a Contract" - type in ITC44 (NOTE: if you search for "Apple" it takes you to ITC16, which is incorrect and old - we are fixing this).
--It will bring up a link "There are 2 Contract(s) found that match your search criteria" - click that.
--First entry is ITC44 - click on the eyeglasses to the right.
--Click on the tab "Vendors"
--There are 5 vendors - click on the eyeglasses to the right of Apple.
--At the bottom - the first document under Vendor Documents is called "Volume Purchasing Program Guidance for Educational Buyers"
This has the provisions for how Commonwealth schools can and must use the program. Read carefully. In short - you cannot pay the invoice until you have redeemed the vouchers. Therefore you should only buy voucher amounts that can be utilize within 30 days (Commonwealth contract terms are 14 days for acceptance, followed by 30 days to pay). Pre-paying for goods/services is against statute in MA.
Some tips from John on Volume Purchasing:
--If the app isn't being offered at a 50% discount, contact the developer.
--If the app doesn't have 100% of the features you want, contact the developer to discuss the features you need.
--It is best to use generic Apple IDs for each role/user.
--Vouchers cannot be split among multiple Program Facilitators.
--Safari is the preferred browser for the VPP portal.
