Chromebook Dashboard Management: Wish List Part 2

My Wish List is growing as we've just received a large shipment :)

Quickly, before I list some more wishes, Google has already granted us one wish from my part 1 blog post--a small but very important one. Timezones are now able to be set via the GAFE Dashboard under Settings/Chrome/Device Settings:

A few more wishes..

Ability to group devices

I've already mentioned this in my previous post, @thanlindley submitted this wish, but getting a little bit more specific of what's wanted--I'd like to see some way to group (auto and manual) devices into orgs, just like we can do with users. Right now, under Devices, they do allow you to move devices into the user orgs. However, I think there should be an option to make different orgs for devices. For example, "samsung chromebooks" "not in system" "old" "cart" "Valley View Elem".

If that new org structure is built I'd like to then move the Device Settings (under Settings/Chrome/Device Settings) into the Devices tab (or just show the new orgs instead of the user orgs). This way we can have certain Chromebooks that allow certain device settings for those new orgs. We can do that right now but you have to use the user orgs.

I understand that settings and policies are per user and not per device (that's the best thing about them in my opinion) but for things like "allow guest access" for this org called "guest chromebook devices" it would need to be set per device. We'd still want to be able to set settings and policies per user org but I feel like there needs to be a separate set of orgs specifically for the devices.

There doesn't seem to be much of a use to move devices into (user) orgs, especially because the orgs are structured by the usefulness of user groups which are not necessarily useful for device management.

I suppose I could make a user org called "Chromebooks" and add sub orgs, then move the devices into there. Even if I did that, will the settings apply to the device or is it only effecting the users. Hmm, now things are looking a bit fuzzy as to how that would work. Anyways, I hope they evolve that Devices tab and add more functionality into it.

Ability to set "pages to load on start up" (for first time log in only)

This would be cool to have for users when they first log in but only the very first time. Sort of like a "welcome". It could be pages in the browser or a pop up on the desktop.

Ability to see which devices are currently enrolled

We can kind of guess and assume that if there was a sync, that they are enrolled. However, if a user were to wipe the device we would not be able to tell (or I can't find how I would be able to tell).

Ability to change the Touchpad speed

Somehow auto choose/select an image no matter what device you log onto

(kind of annoying having to choose an image every time you log onto a new device.


Yesterday they must have been working on the Dashboard Management because they changed  the name from "Chrome OS" to just "Chrome" and they moved things around, added settings. That's a great sign. If you haven't checked out your dashboard recently I would check it out every so often because as we know, Google rarely announces things like that.