Managing hundreds or thousands of Chromebooks can be a challenge for school IT administrators. Many administrators are keen to automate repetitive Chromebook management tasks, such as OU assignment and disabling lost devices. GAM or Google Apps Manager, is a free and open source solution for IT administrators who are happy to work close to the metal using a command line. For school IT administrators looking for a Chromebook automation solution providing a more simple and intuitive interface, VIZOR, provides many of the automation benefits of GAM.

What is GAM?

Google Apps Manager (GAM) is a free open source command line tool that allows IT administrators to manage many aspects of their Google Workspace domain. GAM was originally designed by Jay Lee, a Google domain systems administrator who was frustrated with the lack of automation tools for Google admins. GAM is an open-source community project, not an official Google product. Ross Scroggs, now maintains the project with the help of the community. As an open source project there are many versions, or forks, GAMADV-XTD3 is the most widely used and actively developed version of GAM.

How can schools use GAM for Chromebook management?

GAM can help schools automate Chromebook management by using scripts and batch files to perform common tasks and workflows. GAM supports over 800 commands covering virtually every aspect of Google Workspace administration. For example, schools can use GAM to:

• Enroll and deprovision Chromebooks in bulk
• Set up device policies and preferences
• Perform OU assignment
• Update ChromeOS versions and settings
• Monitor device status and usage
• Enable and Disable Devices
• Generate reports and audits

Automation can be especially useful for schools that use Chromebooks. Managing thousands of Chromebooks can be a challenge for understaffed and overworked IT teams. That’s where tools such as GAM or VIZOR can help.

Getting started with GAM

To get started with GAM, visit the GAM Wiki (https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki/) for detailed setup instructions and usage documentation.

User friendly GAM alternative

As Uncle Ben told Spider Man, “with great power comes great responsibility”. GAM is a powerful tool which can save school IT departments many hours by automating common Chromebook management tasks. However, mistakenly deleting thousands of student accounts or disabling hundreds of devices is not fun. So test, test and test again before putting scripts into production.

For school IT administrators looking for a more simple and process driven approach, VIZOR, provides many of the automation benefits of GAM with a friendly user interface. In fact, none IT staff such as teachers can trigger automations using VIZOR. This is possible as VIZOR provides the necessary safeguards by wrapping automations in a process driven user interface.