Chromebook Wish List: Updated

Google recently released a few great features in the GAFE Admin Console. Time to take a look at the Chromebook Wish List and see where we're at.

Device Management/Chrome Devices

"2. Instead of having the original user who enrolled the device listed in the "user" column, display the user who is currently logged in or last logged in. This is currently my #1 wish. I've found that even if I wipe the machine, it still lists the very, very first user who enrolled it. This has to get better."

As of March 26th, 2014 you are able to see the last 5 users on the device by clicking on the device in the device listing, then clicking Recent Activity.

Not working?
Make sure the "Enable tracking recent device users" is on in the Device Settings. Also, make sure that "clear local data" is NOT enabled.

"4. Have the MAC address of the device be pre-filled when devices get listed in the console."

A day after the recent activity feature started coming out, I started noticing MAC addresses showing in some devices! You can go to the device listing/click on a device/click on Hardware and OS. I'm not sure if they automatically fill or if they need to sync at least one time or not. I also hope they add the ability to EXPORT this data.

"8. The ability to remove devices that are no longer in your district's system."

You can now deprovision devices. You can go to the Device listing page, check a device and select "Deprovision" from the drop down menu. It will then remove the device from being shown unless you change the drop down menu to Deprovisioned. I wish they would completely go away but at least they won't clutter up the device listing view. Read my blog post on that here.

"10. Information on when the device was first enrolled, unenrolled, user logs, etc. "

Part of this wish was granted--the user logs and information about the device active times. 

Device Management/Shipments

"1. The ability to see more than the last 15 shipments. (this is ridiculous)"

 Well it looks like this had no improvements because they will no longer show shipments in the console. I believe it's because Google is longer shipping or doing the white glove--or something? Not sure if that's totally accurate but I heard that the shipments page is no longer updated and probably will go away.