Menu items are all just text files with a .desktop extension, so they are easy to create and/or edit. Global menu items are stored in /usr/share/applications/ and each user's are in ~/.local/share/applications/ . You can also override existing menu items by placing .desktop files in /usr/local/share/applications/ . The files are fairly straightforward, like this one:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Scratch
Comment= Programming system and content development tool
Exec=scratch
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=scratch
Categories=Education;;
MimeType=application/x-scratch-project
This one executes the "scratch" command, places the icon under "Education" and looks for an icon of any readable image type called "scratch" (in this case, it's scratch.png located in /usr/share/icons/). You can use full paths for both the Exec line and the Icon line, if you want to place your app/icons somewhere else.
My SBAC desktop file looks like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Exec=/opt/SBACSecureBrowser6.0/SBACSecureBrowser6.0.sh
Name=Smarter Balanced Testing
Comment=Take the Smarter Balanced Online Test
Icon=category-show-all
Categories=Application;Network;
In which case I installed the browser in /opt/ . Obviously, you can install anywhere you want, including in the user's home folder, so long as you have an appropriate path for the Exec line. The icon I chose is just a pre-existing one that looked good to me.
Once you have it all in place and working, you could tar it up and push it with an auto-update script, however bear in mind that the SBAC browser is like 70Mb, so it would bomb your wireless when a bunch of devices startup at the same time.
All that said, if you want a tar file for SBAC, let me know and I'll send you one :-)