SkieCan school IT set up tablets from a laptop, or does it have to be a phone?
Either works. School IT can provision from a laptop using adb and one pasted command, or from a phone using the Skie Provision app over Wi-Fi pairing. Both create a managed device with the same result. The app is native and on Google Play, and QR code provisioning is not available yet.
Skie offers two ways to make a tablet managed, and the choice is about what your IT person has to hand. The result is identical: the tablet becomes managed by Skie as the Android device owner, with the right model profile, the right group and one licence seat.
The laptop route uses adb. The dashboard generates a one-time token and a command, you paste it, and the tablet is enrolled. It suits an IT team that already has a laptop and is comfortable with a cable. Wired provisioning from a dedicated tool is not available yet, so the laptop route uses adb.
The phone route uses the Skie Provision app, a native app on Google Play. You sign in, choose the group, pair with the tablet over Wi-Fi and follow a guided stepper. Live progress and failure reasons show on screen. It never provisions its own phone, so the phone you hold stays yours. The web dashboard is also available inside the app, which helps when you work at the tablet cart and not at a desk.
In both cases the tablet must be freshly set up or reset, with no Google account on it. A new model goes through a one-time model review, after which every tablet of that model uses the same profile. School Wi-Fi details can be stored as an encrypted profile and are never shown back.
A practical tip: if you have more than a handful of tablets, set up a small station with one or two people using the phone route in parallel and one laptop for any device that gives trouble. Keep a note of failure reasons so repeat problems are spotted early.