Accessibility features reset after every logout/shutdown

[mcbride]

We use Classlink as our SSO so when students turn on their chromebooks they authenticate through Google on a Classlink login page, that takes them directly to their SSO portal once authenticated. As part of that deployment, Classlink recommends we enforce the setting to clear local data on shutdown and logout, so students don't pick up a device from another student and be automatically signed into all of their applications. This all makes sense and works as expected. However, we recently had an uptick in students enrolling who needed larger screen devices and have vision issues and who are making accessibility changes to increase the screen size, cursor size, etc. and the issue they are having is that these changes are reset every time they logout/shutdown the device.

Does anyone have recommendations on how both of these things can live together? I don't want to put these students into their own OU to control those settings. I don't want to change the settings we have in place for the entire OU per Classlink's recommendation. Any other ideas?

[Kim_Nilsson]

The initial statement from Classlink doesn't make sense. Under no circumstances should any other user be logged in regardless if using SSO or not.

Thereby there should be no reason to clear out profiles, and your users' settings will be retained.

[mcbride]

We have the Device Setting for User Data set to Erase All Local User Data, per the settings from Classlink.

Since this is happening, I think this is preventing the users accessibility preferences to be lost every time

[Kim_Nilsson]

Yes, that's absolutely why it's happening. It is erasing the user's local profile which has those settings.

Some settings are device specific, and will not sync to the online user profile.

That you could, of course, give as feedback to Google, but it will still not be possible to automatically adjust device settings on the login page before the user has logged in the first time.

[mhermmsd]

We have Classlink too and having the profile erased just creates big headaches in terms of storage available on device and Play apps reinstalling every time they login.  The only issue we have found following Classlink's recommendation is if a student closes out the My Apps, they will just have to login again to Classlink again.  The elementary teachers don't want this happening so we only clear profiles for them.  Our middle and high schoolers have no issues so we do not enable that setting.  What we do for our elementary students with vision issues is create an OU to put their chromebook in since they are the only one using that chromebook and just apply that setting locally.  That way their accessibility settings get saved.   

[mcbride]

Thanks for the feedback. I ran this topic through Classlink support and got some additional info from them worth sharing. They said if it's causing issues with clearing the local data then an optional alternative they recommended is: Disable the profile picker on the user settings and disable the names & photos setting in the device settings. So, for now I'm going to give this a shot and see how that goes

[mhermmsd]

Let me know if those settings made any difference for you.  One other drawback of having that setting turned on is storage.  Just remember that when you have that setting enabled, the available storage space is limited to half the size of your RAM.    So if your chromebooks have 32 GB drive, but you only have 4 GB of RAM, the amount of storage available to you will only be 2 GB.  I know this always causes a lot of confusion to people when they look at their device storage and only see less than 2 GB of storage space available on a 32 GB drive.  They are left thinking what is hogging up all the space. If students are allowed to do offline files or Android apps, you will see space filling up fast.