How to Deploy Helperbird to an Entire School District

A district is not one big school. It is many schools, several device types and a roster that changes every term. This page is about those three problems. For the steps of a single rollout, see deploy Helperbird to your school or business.

One Key for the Whole District

A district license is one subscription key. You paste the same value into every organizational unit, tenant or device group you want covered. There is no per-school key to keep track of and no reissue when you add a school.

The policy itself is two values, subKey and isAdminControl. Both are set out in setting Chrome storage managed keys, and the console fields that hold them are in install through the Google Admin console.

What the Key Is Tied To

The key belongs to the policy, not to a person. Any student on a device the policy reaches gets Helperbird Pro, so shared exam Chromebooks and library machines are covered without per-user setup.

One flip of isAdminControl to false takes the key back in every unit the policy covers, not one school at a time. Read what isAdminControl does before you touch that switch district-wide.

Pick an Organizational Unit Structure

Child units inherit from their parent and can override it, so a per-school unit under a district-wide one gets the key without you setting it twice. See set up a child organizational unit.

Districts Rarely Have One Kind of Device

The same subscription key works everywhere. What changes is how the policy gets there, and one platform is the exception.

Chromebooks, managed Chrome, Edge and Firefox all take the key by policy. Pick your tool on force install Helperbird.

iPads and iPhones cannot be force installed and cannot be sent a managed policy. Students install the app themselves and enter your district key by hand in Helperbird's settings in Safari. Give them unlock Helperbird Pro on iPhone and iPad, and budget for the fact that this step is manual.

New Students and Transfers

Nothing to do. A student added to a covered unit gets Helperbird Pro on their next device sync, and a student moved between schools keeps Pro as long as the new unit is covered too.

If you sync your roster from a student information system, that membership change is enough on its own. See provision Helperbird with SDS, SFTP or Clever.

Different Settings for Different Schools

Elementary and high school rarely want the same feature set. Because settings travel in the same policy as the key, you can keep one key district-wide and vary the rest per unit: turn features off, keep Helperbird off named sites, or show the Floating Toolbar on exam devices.

• Disable Helperbird features with JSON policy
• Disable Helperbird on specific websites
• Enable the Floating Toolbar

Adoption across the district is reported in the Helperbird Admin Dashboard.

Related Guides

• Deploy Helperbird to your school or business
• Helperbird Unlimited license management
• Install Helperbird for specific users
• Deploy Helperbird using Microsoft Intune
• Verify and troubleshoot a managed deployment

Need Additional Help?

If you have any questions about district-wide deployment or licensing, please contact the Helperbird support team. You can reach us at Helperbird support. We are happy to help you get set up.