Best Practice with Apple Business Manager

[rkfdsam]

I am just starting with Apple Business Manager and Jamf Now.  All devices were purchased independently so there are no devices in ABM.  

As a test, I used Open Enrollment in Jamf Now on one device. It appears in the Jamf dashboard but not in ABM.  Should I be enrolling in ABM first using Apple Configurator 2and then syncing? Is there any downside to just using Open Enrollment vs Apple Configurator 2?

Thank you.

[pete_c]

Typically, any devices owned by the organization would (should) be enrolled in ABM, as that gives you the greatest degree of control.  There's nothing wrong with only using Open(manual) enrollment, but you lose the ability to make the MDM profile mandatory (ie, not removable by a local admin).

https://docs.jamf.com/10.31.0/jamf-pro/administrator-guide/Computer_Enrollment_Methods.html

[easyedc]

Just using the open enrollment option for your devices doesn't fully manage them. Ideally, you'd use Apple Configurator and build a supervision within that, which can point to your ABM I believe.  Also, Open Enrollment doesn't grant you full supervision - only done on first launch of device, through ABM, or a wipe, etc through Apple Configurator.  Are these company purchased devices? Can you justify to your users the need to wipe/re-enroll them? Might be more headache than gain. 

[rkfdsam]

Yes, all devices of which I speak are company purchased.  But since they were purchased directly on the Apple Store or from an Apple Sales Representative and not through a private Apple Store set up for our organization, they don't appear in the ABM. I'll have to figure out how to best deal with these devices.  Some may be too old to even get them into the system as they lack T2.

[hanbisemo]

Our business is very small, under 30 users/devices, and I personally like the Jamf Now Fundamentals package. I have seen a lot of hate toward Apple Business Essentials, and I'm inclined to trust the opinions I've seen here, especially since ABE is so new. With that said, the strengths and limitations of Jamf are much more clearly documented, but I haven't seen as much about ABE as it relates to a smaller business. Would anyone care to weigh in?