How declarative device management powers the future of K-12 IT

Get a preview of our webinar, How Declarative Device Management Powers the Future of K-12 IT.

May 23 2025 by

Hannah Bien

Jamf offers management and security solutions built for schools. With enterprise-secure and privacy-first technology, schools use Jamf to improve learning outcomes. In our webinar, How Declarative Device Management Powers the Future of K-12 IT, Emily McRoberts Froese, Senior Education Leadership Executive, and Tracy Joy Joyce, Sales Engineer, talk about how Jamf and Apple's declarative device management features help schools manage, secure, engage and empower with their device deployments.

Watch the webinar for a detailed discussion, or start with a preview here!

What is declarative device management?

To understand declarative device management (DDM), it's important to understand how mobile device management (MDM) solutions communicate with devices when not using DDM. To summarize:

  1. The MDM asks the device to check in.
  2. The device checks in with the MDM.
  3. MDM tells the device what to do, like update an app for example.
  4. The device confirms.

This process repeats every time the MDM needs to know the status of the device. This is traffic heavy and can result in missed updates if the device changes status between check-ins.

With DDM, the device acts proactively:

  1. MDM sends a declaration to the device, telling it what action needs to take place.
  2. Once done, the device reports back to the MDM — no request required from the MDM.

This way, your MDM can better understand the status of the device with minimal delay.

Integrating DDM into your environment

Schools can leverage DDM with Blueprints in Jamf School. Jamf will automatically enable DDM on any newly enrolled devices or the next device check-in for existing devices, as long as they meet eligibility requirements. Jamf School will report which devices are using DDM. With Blueprints, devices proactively and autonomously apply management settings and report state changes to the MDM server asynchronously, making the device management workflow more efficient and automated.

DDM and Jamf help schools keep devices secure and functional.

Watch the webinar for more details about how these tools empower admins, teachers and students for a great learning experience.