Overview This document walks through how to configure and use temporary privilege elevation on macOS using Self Service+.End users can request temporary local administrator rights directly from the Self Service+ app, authenticate via Touch ID or password, provide a business reason, and receive time-limited elevation, all without IT intervention.The elevation duration, reason requirements, authentication requirements, and permitted reasons are all administrator-controlled via a Jamf Connect configuration profile deployed through Jamf Pro.PrerequisitesUpdated: 3/6/25- To add clarification to Prerequisites Before following this guide, ensure the following are in place:Self Service+ v2.0 of greater installed on the target Mac. Jamf Pro access to create and deploy configuration profiles. The target Mac is enrolled in Jamf Pro. A valid Jamf Connect licence assigned to the device or user. Walkthrough Step 1: Configure the Jamf Connect Preference Domain in Jamf Pro In Jamf Pro, create a new co

I’d wanted to understand for a while how Apple structures its own support approach and what really lies behind the Apple Certified Support Professional certification. So I decided to take the exam myself. In this post, I’ll share how I prepared, which learning resources helped me most, and what I’d recommend to anyone planning to do the same. The Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) certification validates comprehensive knowledge in supporting and administering Apple devices. It’s designed for IT professionals, help desk staff, and administrators who regularly work with macOS, iOS, or iPadOS and provide daily end-user support. “This course introduces you to the knowledge, skills, and tools used to support and troubleshoot Apple devices in a large organization as a level 1 or 2 help desk professional.”  Learning Resources and Preparation   Apple offers free official learning modules on the Apple Training platform. These cover all topics included in the exam, such as user manageme

You might know Sagar Rastogi (@rastogisagar123) from his helpful replies in Jamf Nation, or from some of his Tech Thoughts blogs (here, here and here). He’s a technical architect at TCS, and he was recently named a winner in the TCS Global AI Hackathon, the world’s largest AI hackathon with more than 280,000 participants across 58 countries. It’s a huge honor, so naturally we wanted to celebrate Sagar and share more info on his great achievements.  Standing Out in a Crowd of 280,000 The scale of the hackathon alone is impressive, but what stood out even more was how Sagar approached it. His winning submission was a completely self‑driven project: an end‑to‑end AI product roadmap designed to solve real‑time challenges across healthcare, finance, and energy. His ideas weren’t just creative, but they were grounded in scalability, ethics, compliance, and practical feasibility. However, according to Sagar, innovation isn’t a solo act. It’s the shared momentum of a community pushing boundari

 From mid-November through the final weeks of the year, many IT teams shift into a different rhythm. Projects wrap up. User demand slows. Emergency tickets still happen, but the pace usually lightens. This quieter stretch creates one of the best opportunities to build new skills, strengthen existing ones, and earn certifications that keep you growing.  Technology does not slow down when the calendar does. Platforms update, security threats evolve, and new tools enter the stack faster than most teams can adopt them. Staying sharp takes intention. If you wait for the “perfect time” to learn something new, it rarely comes. But late Q4 offers a natural runway that is easy to miss if you are not looking for it.  Using this time for learning sends a clear signal to yourself and your team. It shows that continuous upskilling is not a checkbox, but a habit. Whether you manage devices with Jamf, work in security, support end users, or build infrastructure, the problems you solve tomorrow will n

 We’re a year into Apple shipping Apple Intelligence (though technically still in Beta) but Apple hasn’t shipped a clear matrix of which features are on-device vs. require Private Cloud Compute (PCC). If you haven’t read part 1, then click here and go back and read it. And then follow up and read part 2, by clicking here. But what if… all that information was hiding on your very Mac in a system diagnostics, your Mac quietly generates a Model Catalog inside sysdiagnose that lists feature availability, languages, and — critically — which resources are server-side! For those that do not know, you can run a system diagnostics and explore the zip file created to potentially find some interesting tidbits about your Mac.Open Terminal.app and typesudo sysdiagnose -f ~/*** Disclaimer, system diagnostics bundles can potentially contain sensitive information *** Follow the prompt and this will create a system diagnostics zip bundle eventually in your home directory. Double click the zip file crea

🎉 Happy New Year! 🥳 It is traditional to use the beginning of the year to make plans. Conferences and the associated travel require quite a bit of planning. I keep an overview of the larger conferences in the Mac and wider Apple management and security community on my website, but thought a bit of a more detailed overview might be useful.Whether you want to "just" attend or even hand in a proposal for a talk, here is a list of conferences this year with links to their websites. MacAD.UK: Brighton, UK, April 21–22This conference in Brighton on the British coast, south of London, has been bringing together Apple management professionals from the United Kingdom and all over Europe for several years. This year, they are moving to a new venue in Brighton. ACES Conference: Minneapolis, MN, USA, May 12–13ACES focuses more on the business side of providing IT services in the Apple space and as such, is quite interesting for partners and service providers. This year, they have a new track ded

As part of Apple’s unveiling of Declarative Device Management (DDM) at WWDC 2023, Apple announced that DDM management included the ability to deploy MDM configuration profiles using DDM as the delivery mechanism in place of using MDM to deliver the profiles. Jamf Pro’s Blueprints leverages this capability to support device restrictions. Let’s see how this works using a device restriction configuration, using the example of setting the following Apple Intelligence management functions to false in order to block the corresponding Apple Intelligence functions on macOS:For more details, please see below the jump.As of Jamf Pro 11.18.0, there is not a Blueprints template available for creating blueprints which manage device restrictions so the blueprint will need to be configured manually. To do this, use the following procedure:1. Log into Jamf Pro.2. Select Blueprints3. Click the Create blueprint button.4. Give it a name when prompted and click the Create button. For this example, I’m usi

Earlier this week, our Community team brought members of Jamf Nation together for a special event — an hour of inspiration, celebration and gratitude. World-renowned keynote speaker, author and all-around good guy, Chris Schembra, led the conversation: Jamf Nation 2026: The Power of Human Connection.  As the largest online community of Apple admins in the world, Jamf Nation members understand the power of connection. They’ve been using it to move mountains in the Apple space for the better part of two decades. But as the environment around us changes, Chris challenged the group to consider mindset shifts that could lead to even better outcomes. He encouraged them to move both fast and slow, referencing the Emilia-Romagna mindset of “holding the tension of opposites to achieve world-class excellence.” He asked, Where in your life do you need to go slower? Where in your life do you need to go faster? How do you hold the tension between those two?  The chat lit up.  Thoughtful, deeply mea

It must be 8 or 9 years ago that I started supporting customers with ZuluDesk (now Jamf School). This was my first step into the device management world. Before that, I was a repair technician.  As my curiosity grew, I was lucky enough that my employer allowed me to do the Jamf 100 and 200 courses. Managing iOS devices is all good and well, but with Mac you need a little more tools. Things like setting a wallpaper sound easy, but they actually require a bit more work than I expected.   Welcome to the world of Mac Admins! I discovered that for everything I wanted to figure out how to do, there is usually someone with the same question, and maybe they’ve already found a solution for it. Coming in as a completely new Mac Admin, it might be a bit difficult to find your way. But knowing the right people, tools or places to ask for help are really valuable and make all the difference.   So I thought, why not try and create some sort of list with starting points for f

Enrolling in a Jamf Training Course is an exciting step in expanding your skills, but once your class is scheduled on the calendar, you might wonder: How should I prepare for training? What devices should I use? How should I set up my workspace? While Jamf will send you important setup instructions prior to your course beginning, here are additional preparation steps and strategies you can take to ensure you’re fully ready to succeed. 1. Review the Student Setup GuideOne week before your training begins, you will receive an email from Jamf Training with important details about your course. This email will look like the following:   This email will contain:Instructions to log into Jamf Account to view customer requirements and prerequisites A link to access the remote training session the following week A link to the Student Setup Guide A contact for your instructor. If you have questions, you can reach out to them. The Student Setup Guide is essential. It outlines:Device Requirements R

Originally posted in MacAdmin Musings Why I Try to Stop Working Before Everything Is Finished For a long time, I treated the end of my workday as a finish line.I’d keep going until the problem was solved, the task was complete, or I was too drained to continue. If something was still broken or unanswered, I felt pressure to push through it before logging off. Ending the day with loose ends felt like failure, like I wasn’t completing my tasks.Over time, I realized that approach was quietly working against me.Not because unfinished work is bad, but because how you leave work unfinished matters. The Hidden Cost of Draining the Tank When you work until you have nothing left, you don’t just end the day tired. You also make tomorrow harder.The next morning starts cold:You have to remember what you were thinking You have to reconstruct context You have to re-load mental state before you can make progressThat ramp-up cost is real, whether you’re writing small scripts or a large project. Moment

If you’re not using any enrollment progress tool in your Mac Environment now, or if you’re shopping for a replacement, consider Jamf Setup Manager.   When exploring options, we wanted something easy to configure. Something we’d be able to set and forget. And if configurations needed tweaking later, it’d be easy to update.   I am lazy. There, I said it.   Enter Jamf Setup Manager (JSM).   Setup Manager is the best gift I gave myself this Holiday Season. The best part is that we pass this onboarding experience to our customers and technicians.   No heavy lifting. No scripting skills are needed. Just add these two ingredients and you’re on your way.   The Setup Manager Package A new Setup Manager configuration profile Add the two items to your Prestage The folks at Jamf added a QuickStart guide to help you get started. I’d recommend giving this a read. This helped me generate ideas for customizing Setup Manager for my organization (more on that below). &nb

Here’s the problem we need to address: many of the things IT teams do aren’t documented because they’re seen as busy work, there’s no time, people forget, or they just don’t want to. But here’s the thing: documentation may take some time, but it takes exponentially more time to research a solution every time you need it. For example, it might take 20–30 minutes to create a quality document. Researching a solution can take 10–15 minutes, and if you need to research it 2–3 times, that’s 20–45 minutes of research. Meanwhile, it only takes about 5 minutes to re-read a well-written document. So, let’s get started on how to do this. It happens all the time: you figure out a solution or process, implement it, and move on to the next task on your never-shrinking to-do list. A few months later, you need to do the same thing again and must dig through scripts, tickets, blogs, Slack, or wherever you found the solution, trying to recreate it. It takes a lot of time, and you think, “I really should

As an Apple Partner (I work for an Apple Premium Partner in Belgium) Managed Apple Accounts are a bit of a challenge. Last November we concluded our transition after a 2 year adventure. I’ll spare the details I cannot talk about and focus on what’s the same for everyone.There generally are 5 parts of your Managed Apple Account quest:1) Verify your domain2) Lock your domain3) Capture the domain4) Federate with your Identity Provider5) Provision new accountsBefore you get started with this, please know your why. Currently there are not that many reasons why you would absolutely - need - Managed Apple Accounts. Generally we only start the capture (and federation) part with customers of ours whom want to use Account Driven Enrollment (e.g for BYOD purposes). That being said we do advise any customer to verify and lock their domains to prevent issues in the future.Step 1: Verify your domainThe first part is the easiest. You can add a domain in Apple Business Manager and you will be asked to

 When I look back on where I started, joining the Matter Career Readiness Institute (MCRI) was one of the most defining decisions of my tech journey. What began as an opportunity to learn about career readiness quickly became a launchpad into a world of innovation, purpose, and growth. Laying the Foundation: Learning Beyond the CodeAt MCRI, I didn’t just learn how to code, I was taught how to be a better professional and, honestly, a better person. Through communication workshops, critical thinking sessions, and collaborative projects that mirrored real-world work environments, I discovered that being “career ready” in tech isn’t just about what you can build, it’s about how you approach problems, adapt to change (roll with the punches), and connect with others.One of my biggest takeaways from the program was understanding the importance of continuous learning and curiosity, realizing that in technology, the moment you stop evolving, you risk falling behind. From Learning to Building:

Jamf announced in January that the Jamf Pro Classic API will no longer support basic authentication in a future release. Classic API scripts can still run—administrators just need to make a simple change in how they authenticate. Let’s look at why this change is coming and how to convert Classic API scripts to use bearer tokens for authentication instead of usernames and passwords. The token obtained during this workflow will allow authentication to either the Classic API or the more modern Jamf Pro API. We’ll cover: How bearer tokens improve security Request the first token Parse the token Use the token to send an API command Expire the token Renew the token How bearer tokens improve security This change to move away from supplying usernames and passwords as credentials for authenticating to Jamf Pro is a good thing. Bearer tokens improve security by reducing the number of times credentials are sent to the server. Instead of sending them with every request, a token is sent instead,

A Bold Leap Into AppleIt was the summer of 2024 when we were asked to do something our company had never done before. We were going to introduce MacBooks into an environment that had always been 100% Windows. Naturally, questions started flying. How would we manage them? What tools would we need? And, most importantly, how could we ensure the experience was seamless for our users? The hardware part was easy. We knew we could purchase them from Apple anytime. So, the MacBooks were purchased and ready to go, eagerly awaiting their release into our environment. The real challenge was management and integration. After speaking with our team and several vendors, we made our decision: we decided on Jamf. Paperwork signed, onboarding scheduled, and a new chapter began.One Year Later: A Transformation We Didn’t ExpectFast-forward to October 2025, about a year plus, and what a journey it’s been! We’ve faced challenges, learned a ton, and grown stronger as a team. Looking back, we couldn’t have

The heartbeat of Jamf has always been its customers. From day one, your passion and expertise have shaped a community unlike any other. What began as a simple email newsletter eventually grew into Jamf Nation - a space to troubleshoot, share wisdom, and connect with people who just get it. Along the way, we noticed a group of customers consistently going the extra mile, and that sparked the creation of Jamf Heroes - our deeply engaged, wildly generous champions who support Jamf and the wider community in incredible ways. Whether answering questions, offering solutions, or hopping on calls to help someone out, their impact was undeniable. But over time, we realised something bigger: meaningful contributions happen across our entire customer base, every single day. So, we built a way to recognise all of it. Enter Jamf Nation Rewards.        We launched Jamf Nation Rewards at JNUC 2024 to celebrate the everyday actions that strengthen our ecosystem. Joining Jamf Nation discussions and thr

An original version of this post has been shared to Patch Notes and Progress. Reflections from JNUC 2025 — automation, openness, and community taking Mac management to new heights. Denver, Colorado | October 6 – 9, 2025Day 0 — Travel and New ConnectionsJNUC 2025 in Denver was my first in-person Jamf Nation User Conference — and my first time ever on a plane. Over three days, I watched Jamf redefine what MDM means in an API-first world, connected with the Mac Admins community I’ve long admired, and saw firsthand how automation, identity, and community are working to shape the next chapter of Apple device management services. As mentioned in a previous post: Prepping for JNUC 2025, I had been awarded sponsorship by Jamf to attend this year’s Jamf Nation User Conference in Denver Colorado. Before I even left Pittsburgh, Jamf had already dropped next year’s headline: JNUC 2026 will be held in Kansas City, Missouri (Sept 23– 25), with early-bird registration open. JNUC 2026 to be hosted at

It’s already November, and that means the end of 2025 is clearly in sight. Can you believe it? It’s been an eventful year at Jamf, especially for the Jamf community and User Groups!  Earlier this year, we officially launched the User Group program with the goal of connecting as many Apple Admins as possible. We created a starter kit to help new groups get up and running, complete with all the information and resources they need. We also introduced a brand-new community platform, featuring a User Group landing page and an interactive Groups map that displays all the groups around the globe.  It’s been a great year!  To end on an even higher note, we want to give an extra boost to all the groups thinking about getting started. We’ve heard from several soon-to-be User Group leaders who are eager to start but haven’t yet hosted their first meeting. While it’s a busy time of the year, it’s also the perfect time to gather your community, whether in person or online. To help make that happen,

This past July, I gave my third-ever presentation at a large conference: "swiftDialog for Overworked MacAdmins," at the Penn State University MacAdmins Conference. It wasn't my first time: I also presented in 2024 at MacAdmins on the topic of Compliance, and at the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges as part of our security response team on a phishing response workflow. I'm not a big name speaker. I'm not a well-known blogger, or tech writer, or popular person on Slack. I'm not on LinkedIn. I don't have any particular expertise, or much formal training. I'm not even a people-person. So what do I think I have to contribute to the community? I think, like you, that I have a lot to offer. Let me tell you why. If you're at all like me, and I think most IT admins are, we're just doing the best we can in often difficult circumstances: slim budgets, staffing issues, fractally-expanding scope of work. I don't know anyone who has enough time to do all the professional development work they thin

Attending JNUC 2025 in Denver was an incredible experience, a mix of innovation, collaboration, and community. Being surrounded by Apple IT professionals, consultants, and Jamf engineers reaffirmed how rapidly the Apple ecosystem is evolving across management, automation, and security. Key Takeaways 1. Jamf Blueprints and Compliance FrameworksThe new Blueprints feature truly changes how we approach configuration management. The ability to combine configuration profiles, policies, and restrictions into modular blueprints simplifies deployment and compliance alignment, especially for large environments.It also pairs perfectly with automated compliance reporting and remediation workflows, something I’m already planning to test in our sandbox. 2. Jamf Pro + AI IntegrationOne of my favorite announcements was the AI integration in Jamf Pro, providing smart recommendations, faster troubleshooting insights, and context-aware automation. This is going to significantly reduce admin time on repet

If you are looking to manage a fleet of Apple devices at scale, Jamf Pro Cloud is one of theleading tools out there. Whether you are handling Mac, iPads, iPhones, or even Apple TVs, thecloud-hosted version of Jamf Pro makes setup and ongoing management so much easier, no on-premise servers, no manual patching, and security managed by the experts at Jamf. Below, Ibreak down the main steps to get up and running with Jamf Pro Cloud, share key concepts,real-world workflows, and actionable tips.Table of Contents1. What is Jamf Pro Cloud?2. How to Implement Jamf Pro Cloud3. Core Concepts ExplainedPolicies Configuration Profiles Smart and Static Groups Extension Attributes Scripts App and Patch Management The Self Service Portal Inventory and Reporting Security and Compliance Integrations and Automation4. Example Workflows 5. Best Practices What is Jamf Pro Cloud?Jamf Pro Cloud is a fully cloud-based platform for managing Apple devices. Everything runsover the internet; you simply log in to a

 This guide will walk you through setting the local macOS account pictures for end-users via Jamf Connect  Requirements: Jamf Pro Jamf Connect Formatted ID Token Path setup in Jamf Connect Login Config (/private/tmp/token) Azure Storage Blob Email addresses of users follow a pattern for all users (john.smith@myorg.com, jsmith@myorg.com, etc..)  Tested with: Azure AD and Jamf Connect Test User: John.smith@ericsontech.com Steps: 1. First step is to get all of your user images. To make this easy on yourself name them the same as the user's email address. So for John Smith his email is john.smith@ericsontech.com I would name his image as john.smith@ericsontech.com.png and upload that image and all other user's images to an Azure Storage blob. Example:   2. Setup this script to run via Jamf Pro. I have mine setup to run via Jamf Connect Notify Note:  You will need to update this with your Azure Storage Blob url  curl -L "https://myazureblobname.blob.core.windows.net/mdm/$EMAIL.png" -o /tmp/

This article is based off of the presentation at JNUC given by ​@tommypatzius , ​@Jordy-Thery and ​@glennu  Our session at this year’s JNUC 2025 was designed to present a list of helpful tools available to Mac Admins of all skill levels and backgrounds. We know that everyone’s experience with Apple device management is different, so we’ve pulled together a collection of tools that are approachable, practical, and, in many cases, free. Many of them have a low learning curve, making them accessible whether you’re brand new to managing Macs or have years of experience. Our goal is that everyone walks away with at least one new tip, trick, or tool they didn’t know before. To make things clear and easy to follow, we’ve divided the tools into categories by function: Apple apps, Jamf tools, maintenance, setup & customization, notifications & support, and inspection tools. We took a closer look at a few specific highlights—Jamf Helper Constructor, Self Service+, and IBM Data Shift—befo