Hopefully someone can help me answer this. Despite my best efforts I haven't been able to find one.
We have a fully functional DEP setup with Prestage Enrollments working for macOS. We were a little late to the party with DEP so we're still working on getting all of our devices enrolled. On occasion we'll run across a machine that didn't get picked up by our bulk import of machines into the Apple School Manager for DEP enrollment and have to enter it manually.
If we completely erase the machine AFTER entering the computer into the Apple School Manager, it works every time without fail.
If however, we miss the DEP enrollment and add it to ASM after the machine has been erased, we have to erase the machine again even if the setup assistant has not completed running.
Obviously a computer that has already been completely setup will need to be erased again, but if the Setup Assistant is not complete, it seems like you should be able to restart the computer, or step back all the way to the beginning of the setup assistant (All the way back to the Region selection).
This is a concern because we've had a few machines ordered that I did not have advance knowledge of (a hazard of our institutional arrangement unfortunately). I've had a couple techs tell me about these machines before they have been unboxed and I was able set them up in ASM and Jamf without issue, but in every single case I had to tell the tech to erase and reinstall the OS - on a brand-new, never powered on (since it left the factory) machine.
I understand that during the setup assistant downloads an activation record at some point that that tells the machine whether or not it has a DEP record but my question is this: At what point does the setup assistant download that record, and is there any possible way to force it to re-check that record without erasing the machine again?