How can I install an app from the App Store to all the iMacs in my lab?

I'm in the same boat as you -- except that I manage both a school lab (volunteer job) and macs in the enterprise (pay job). What I think we need is the Education Volume Purchasing Program

http://www.apple.com/education/volume-purchase-program/faq.html

Unfortunately this all seems a little rough around the edges -- for example, I have found updates for AppStore apps on the support.apple.com updates download site, but then when I install them via ARD they don't actually update the software. (The AppStore icons still show as needing the updates, and the version info reports the old version.) The documentation is also vague about which AppleID to use in which circumstance. I think they just haven't finished thinking through the implications of the various procedures and policies upon the various kinds of customers. When we deployed Mountain Lion on the school lab, we made an install usb and went around and installed it on each computer -- and it appears that you are on the honor system as far as paying for all of the licenses that you install. We did! But they appear to have no way to enforce it.

So far, I have only deployed 9 Lion macs in my day job, and our "solution" to the AppStore showing updates problem has been to drag the AppStore icon off of the users' docks so they don't see them!

My lab macs are registered under the same Apple ID. I create an automator application. I push the automator app thru ARD to a local admin desktop. I log on all lab macs to local admin.

Then thru ARD I launch the automator app. and wait. If you have large downloads, I recommend 4-5 cpus at a time. see attached picture for an example automator app. You will need to familarize yourself with automator, yet i hope this helps.

Many apps can just be file dropped in. For instance, when iMovie updated and all my Lion computers needed the update, I just updated one and then copied the program to the others with ARD. Many other apps are self contained and will work that way.

For the others, well....

chicster wrote:

Many apps can just be file dropped in. For instance, when iMovie updated and all my Lion computers needed the update, I just updated one and then copied the program to the others with ARD. Many other apps are self contained and will work that way.

For the others, well....

same I have all my Apps on the ARD computer, and When there an update I copy the updated app to the other computers.
if that dosen't work, mid update, i'll pause the update, Find the update file on the computer, move it to the desktop, resume download, when the download completes I have the update on the desktop that I can push out to the other computers.

Hi,

So is there any way, without passing by Automator, or without copying the updated files, to update AppStore with ARD ?

working with unix command or something like software update

softwareupdate -i -a

I'd love this to get sorted out as updating apps can be really easy (use copy feature of ARD into the Applications folder) and sometimes it can be a pain.

A simple UNIX command like the one above would be ideal. There's one there for system updates but nothing for the app store.

I'm still looking every week to see if something pops out from Apple or someone else.

Still trying to work somehing out with Automator but it's not easy.