Overview
This document details the process for enrolling macOS devices into your datajar.mobi instance via Automatic Device Enrolment (ADE). This will be via one of the Apple Business Manager (ABM) or Apple School Manager (ASM) portals.
If you require documentation for enrolling macOS devices via User Initiated Enrolment please see: Enrolling macOS devices as BYOD (previously User-Initiated Enrollment/UIE)
Please Note: This document has been created as a guide for the majority of our customers, but may not be fully applicable in every instance. Please consult any instructions from the dataJAR team regarding your specific setup.
Assigning devices to Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager
Computers must be assigned to Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager before they can be enrolled into datajar.mobi through Automatic Device Enrolment. There are two ways to achieve this:
- The hardware reseller assigns them at the point of purchase, or can do so retrospectively in some cases, if you provide proof of purchase information to them. Please see the following article for further details: Manage device suppliers in Apple Business/School Manager
- For Apple Silicon and Intel T2 based computers, use Apple Configurator on an iPhone. Please see the following page for further details: Apple Configurator on the App Store
Pre-enrolment steps
Prior to enrolment, there are some initial one-time steps that must be taken. Once these have been performed for a specific device, they do not need to be performed again unless you are changing the device's usage (e.g. moving it from 1:1 to a shared device, or from a shared device to 1:1).
1) Log into Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager.
2) Use the "Device Assignments" section and the device's serial number to assign to the device/s to the datajar.mobi MDM server. It is possible to assign multiple devices at the same time, separated by a comma or a new line.
3) Using the automated enrolment tab on Jamf Insights you can assign the devices to the correct Pre Stage (1:1 or Shared, depending on its classification). Please see the following articles for more information:
4) After approximately 10-15 minutes, the device should now be ready to be wiped (if required) and enrolled into datajar.mobi.
Enrolment steps
The above process should only be required once per device. Once complete, you should be able to follow the below steps.
1) Connect the device to power and a network connection. A wired connection is strongly suggested, but wireless is also possible (although this may be slower). You will also benefit by using a network that has an Apple Caching server and / or a dataJAR Accelerator Appliance. If you are interested in either of these, feel free to reach out to the dataJAR Support team.
2) Boot the device to the recovery partition, erase the internal hard drive and reinstall a fresh OS. This is covered under our article Preparing your devices for datajar.mobi and the Apple Support article How to erase a disk for Mac.
Please Note: If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, please follow this Apple Support article on the correct process for this: How to erase a Mac with Apple silicon
3) Once the OS is installed, ensure the device is still on a network connection and proceed through the Apple Setup Assistant.
4) When prompted to enrol in the datajar.mobi MDM system, accept and continue.
5) If deploying a 1:1 device, you may be prompted to sign in with your organisation user account and then will be prompted to create a new user account. Please ensure to create a user account for the end user, and not a temporary admin account or a local admin / service account. Failure to do so can result in issues with full disk encryption which will likely require a full redeployment. For more details, see our article Secure Token Requirements and Considerations.
6) If deploying a shared device, you will be prompted to create your local administrator account. The account name and user name will be pre-filled. Please ensure you enter your desired local administrator account password correctly here.
6) After reaching the login window or the Desktop (depending on your specific configuration) leave the device. Within a few minutes the dataJAR Progress Screen should appear, prompting you for a device name (optional depending on implementation requirements) and the device role (required).
7) Pick a device role and optionally provide a device name and click the continue button. Depending on your setup, the device may set its name automatically to its serial number or your name.
8) The device will now deploy the required software. Once complete, the device will automatically restart.
9) The device should now be ready for use.
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Alternatively, please see our frequently updated knowledge base articles for reference.