Today, I am going to walk you through some exciting updates to Apple Configurator.Ĭonfigurator makes it easy to deploy iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV devices in your school or business.
In my experience, their onboarding is pretty amazing and will spent a couple hours helping out with deployment even though I planned to stick with the free tier.♪ Bass music playing ♪ ♪ Pradhap Natarajan: Hello, and welcome to "Manage Devices with Apple Configurator." I am Pradhap Natarajan, an engineer on the Device Management team here at Apple. AppleTV management is always free with Mosyle. Mosyle is free if you are only using it for iOS or mac, but not both. If you are planning on using shared iPads, then you must use MDM to enable that functionality.
I have found it pretty useful to put a WiFi profile on devices if you are setting up bunches of them at once so you don't have to type in credentials (I wish iPads could use the camera to load WiFi from a QR code during setup!)
We also had a bunch of iPhones that were purchased from Amazon by a teacher that I wanted to manage.so we did purchase a mac mini specifically for the task.well, that and I wanted to experiment/learn macOS management as well.Īpple Configurator 2 can tweak profiles and push them to devices for basic management and might be all you need, but doubtful. When I set up ASM, a bunch of old devices showed up from my predecessor that were purchased from Apple but never managed, so I can confirm enrollment is retroactive, but who knows if this is true for everyone. If they were purchased from a non-apple reseller, then you need Apple Configurator 2 to enroll them into ASM as a DEP. If devices are purchased from Apple, then they will show up in ASM as a DEP automagically. There is no MDM involved with ASM beyond the ability to point Device Enrollment Program (DEP) devices to the MDM server that will manage them. I think to answer your question directly, if all your devices are showing up in Apple School Manager (ASM) there is no need for a mac running Apple Configurator 2 and you'd want to look into Mosyle or JAMF. You can still enroll devices in an MDM without them being wiped, but it'll be more at a BYOD level of supervision than total ownership.
If you allow the use of standard Apple IDs, users can use both services.įor devices to be under the highest level of supervision, they'll need to be wiped as part of the process.
If you decide to use managed Apple IDs (domain_) then the users will not have access to the App Store and will need to download apps through your provisioning software. Finally, in the MDM, assign the device to users or group as appropriate. Then in ABM/ASM, assign the device to your MDM. My workflow (which could almost certainly be improved) is to online the device, then connect it to the Macbook and run the setup profile against it. Not everything needs to be filled out, and some steps (like network profiles) can be worked around if they just aren't clicking into place. The documentation for setting up the Configurator profiles is a bit scattered, but keep at it and join the MacAdmins slack if you get stuck. You'll be trading certificates between ASM and your MDM so they can talk, but this process is usually illustrated step-by-step and is easy to follow (click generate, copy file, repeat). There are others mentioned in the thread, so investigate them all and see what fits your requirements best. Addigy and Mosyle are good alternatives, and the latter of those two is what we went with as they were much cheaper (at the time I haven't checked recently). However, like /u/neurosurge mentioned, if you don't need remote oversight of these devices, you can manage policies out of Configurator to some extent instead of paying for an MDM.Īs far as MDMs, Jamf is positioned as enterprise Apple device management and feels intended for organizations that use Mac desktops in addition to mobile devices, price-wise. You may want an MDM that you can tie into ASM. If you bought through a reseller, they may be willing to add them retroactively, and Apple may be willing to add the devices if you can provide receipts and other proof of ownership. Short answer: yes, you need a Macbook for Configurator 2 it won't run on any other system and there is no other way for you to add the devices to ASM.