Out With The Old And In With The New For Bulk Chromebook Management Tools!
We’ve loved Chromebook Inventory ever since we added Chromebooks to our lineup of K-12 tech. When it comes to bulk Chromebook management add-ons for Google Admin Console, this has been a long-time favorite of the FireFly tech team! ChromebookInventory lets you export organizational units (OUs) and metadata into a Google Sheet. There, you can easily manage and update systems and then import the settings back into the console. It makes managing an entire fleet of Chromebooks a total breeze and saves you tons of time! Oh, and did we mention it’s FREE?
But alas, all good things come to an end, and on July 15th, 2019 this tool will stop working.
Luckily, a great new alternative has just appeared on the scene! Our friends at Admin Remix have developed a replacement tool for Chromebook Inventory called Chromebook Getter. The tech team at Trafera has been testing it out in-house and has been in contact with the developers. So far, it has been an easy transition. The experience is just like Chromebook Inventory. Chromebook Getter is free, and most importantly, it will keep working after the July cutoff!
Lets Get Started!
Sure, there are other tools out there that let you do the same thing with the addition of all sorts of bells and whistles, but in our experience, Chromebook Inventory, and now Chromebook Getter, is a favorite among the free options. It really is a great tool. It’s intuitive, it’s easy, and it makes the whole process of bulk updating and managing devices in Google Admin Console so much better.
So for those out there who rely on Chromebook Inventory for Chromebook management and are panicking about what to do come July 15, don’t miss a single beat! Head to Google Marketplace, install the app, and keep on managing your Chromebook fleet sweat-free with Chromebook Getter.
Update 7/10/19:
Today we learned that moving OUs is not currently working as expected. We’re working with the developers to assist with getting that corrected ASAP!
Update 7/12/19:
While the developers are actively working on a permanent fix for being able to move OUs, in the meantime, our FireFly tech team has identified a viable workaround. Use the field ‘Annotated Location’ (or Notes) to specify the OU the units will go into. After uploading to the console, filter by the location field in the devices view and select up to 50 devices at a time to move them within the Admin Console. We will post an update once Chromebook Getter is updated with the ability to move OUs as intended.
As an additional note, we have learned that ‘Get Chromebooks’ is still a newer feature (as opposed to ‘Get All’) and is being actively developed. We have found some instances where it will retrieve duplicate rows or miss very recently enrolled units. Using ‘Retrieve All’ will retrieve everything as expected. The developers are working to correct this issue, and as soon as the Chromebook Getter is updated we will post an update below.
Update 7/16/19:
Excellent news! The dev team for Chromebook Getter works fast, and they have already fixed the ability to move OUs and use the ‘Get Chromebooks’ feature. None of the workarounds above are needed in the most recent version. Special shout out to our FireFly tech team, who did an amazing job documenting the issues and working with the Chromebook Getter devs to get everything solved so quickly.