Support
Overhead
Overhead is built and supported in-house by the RSU 87 Technology Department. There is no ticket queue behind a vendor and no support tier — you are emailing the person who wrote it.
Overhead 1.0.0 · iPadOS 17 or later · iPad only
Get help
RSU 87 Technology Department — ropelletier@rsu87.org
Include the details in what to tell us below. A report with them gets fixed; a report of “it crashed” usually needs a second email first.
What to tell us
Five lines, and most problems are diagnosable without a visit.
- Which iPad — the name or asset tag on the back of the case.
- What you were doing — the screen you were on and the button you pressed.
- What happened — and what you expected instead.
- Whether it happens every time or happened once.
- A screenshot, if there was a message on screen. Press the top button and either volume button together.
The version is at the bottom of Settings inside the app. If a message appeared, quote it exactly — the wording usually identifies the cause.
Questions that come up
How do I get Overhead on my iPad?
The Technology Department installs it. It is a private district app, distributed through Apple School Manager, so it will not be found by searching the App Store. If a cart iPad does not have it, ask and it will be pushed.
Do I have to sign in to anything?
No. The camera, freezing a frame, marking it up, saving boards and saving to Photos all work with no account and no internet connection. Google sign-in is optional and only adds saving to and opening from your Google Drive.
Where do my boards go?
Onto the iPad, in Boards & Scans, and they stay there until you delete them — that is the point, so a worksheet can come back next term. They are not in Photos or Drive unless you put them there. They are also not synced between iPads: a board made on the cart iPad lives on that iPad.
Deleting the app deletes every board and scan with it. If something matters, save it to Photos or Drive as well.
Why does Google ask for access to all of my Drive?
Because the narrower permission Google offers would only ever show files the app itself created — which makes a folder browser useless and makes opening a worksheet you already have impossible. The privacy policy states plainly what is granted and lists the only operations the app performs. If you would rather not grant it, do not sign in; everything else still works.
Can I put a worksheet or a slide deck on the board?
Yes — from Photos, from Files, or from Google Drive. A PDF or a slide deck becomes one board per page, grouped as a single item in the library so a forty-slide deck does not become forty separate tiles. Google Slides and PowerPoint decks are converted by Google on the way in, which takes a few seconds for a long one.
Two limits, both reported on screen rather than applied silently:
- 60 pages per import. A longer file imports its first 60 pages and says so.
- A very large deck can be refused by Google during conversion. The message says so; splitting the deck is the workaround.
Slides arrive flattened: each slide becomes one picture, so builds, animations and transitions are not preserved. Speaker notes do not come across. Present from the deck itself if the animation is the lesson.
The controls are covering the page I want to mark up.
Tap the eye button to hide the toolbar and the page strip; tap it again to bring them back. Two fingers anywhere on the board does the same. When the pencil palette is open it floats above the app and iPad decides where it sits — drag it to the side or collapse it with the button on its end.
Nothing appears on the projector.
Check the cable or adapter first, then that the iPad shows the display in Control Centre. Screen mirroring always works as a fallback: whatever is on the iPad goes to the projector, controls included.
There is no flashlight button.
No iPad has ever shipped a rear flash, so there is nothing to switch on. Overhead hides the button rather than showing a dead one.
Something I drew disappeared.
Undo is in the top bar while you are marking up. Ink drawn straight over the live camera image is deliberately temporary — it is not saved and will not line up if the page moves, because it is drawn on the screen rather than on the page. To keep annotations, freeze the frame first and mark up the board.
For district IT
Managed App Configuration keys, pushed from Jamf Pro.
Managed values win over anything set in the app, and the app shows a value as managed rather than pretending it is editable.
| Key | Type | Effect |
|---|---|---|
google.clientID | String | OAuth client ID. Empty disables Google sign-in entirely |
google.restrictToDomains | Bool | Refuse accounts outside the allowed domains |
google.allowedDomains | String | Which domains may sign in |
google.driveFolderName | String | Default upload folder. Unset uploads to My Drive |
boards.warningThreshold | Number | Board count at which the app warns about storage |
display.logoBase64 | String | Logo for the projector's idle screen, as base64 PNG data. Unset shows the built-in mark |
display.subtitle | String | A district or school name under the app name on the projector. Unset shows nothing |
classSession.relayURL | String | Enables class sessions. Must be wss://. Unset — the default — leaves the feature off |
classSession.hostToken | String | Shared secret permitting this iPad to start a session |
Overhead requests camera access and add-only Photos access, and nothing else. Denying the camera leaves an app that can still open and mark up boards. See the privacy policy for what each permission is used for.
Requirements
| Devices | iPad only. Built and tested for the district's cart iPads |
| System | iPadOS 17.0 or later |
| Network | None required. Only used for optional Google sign-in |
| Apple Pencil | Supported, not required — a finger works |
| Distribution | Private district app via Apple School Manager and Jamf Pro |
Bugs and requests
Feature requests are genuinely wanted and several shipped features started as one — importing from Drive, hiding the controls and grouping a deck into a single library item all came from teachers using it. Send them to the same address.
What is documented, including the limitations the app has not solved, is on the apps page.