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Setting up Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager

  • Updated

Overview

Apple School Manager (for education customers) and Apple Business Manager (for non-education customers) are free services Apple provide for assisting with the automated enrolment of Apple devices, and distribution of managed content. For more information, please see:

Important Considerations

  • From initial sign-up to full enrolment, either of these services can take two weeks (or more) to be fully available.
  • As part of the process, an Apple Representative will call the number provided in order to verify your identity. If they cannot get an answer or they cannot get through to you, this can add a further delay to the process.
  • At least once per year (around September / October) and occasionally other times (March / April) you will be notified of an update to the Terms and Conditions of Service. Whilst these are pending, devices cannot be assigned for deployment and Apps will not be deployed. You should review and (if possible) accept these as soon as you are notified. 
  • You will need to have your Institute's / Company's DUNS number and VAT number (if applicable) ready for the sign up process. You should also have either your Apple Customer Number or the Reseller ID number from where you purchased your devices from.

Requirements

In light of the above considerations, we would strongly suggest the below steps are followed to create an Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager instance:

  1. Create an email alias or distribution group called "deploy@[your domain]". This will allow you to move the Apple ID easier if the responsible person / team leaves or is reassigned.
  2. Navigate to https://school.apple.com or https://business.apple.com and start the enrolment process.
  3. Enter the required details for the primary contact.
  4. Configure Two Factor Authentication for the deployment Apple ID.
  5. Once you have full access, navigate to the "Apps and Books" section and buy a few free iOS App (if using iOS) and / or free macOS App (if using macOS) licenses.

Need further support?

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Alternatively, please see our frequently updated knowledge base articles for reference.

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