Archiving old machines?

[wstewart3]

We have a lot of old machines that have not completed a check-in, in quite some time.

I really would prefer not to delete these, as the data could potentially be useful in the future (Such as a FileVault recovery key, or user/program data).

Is it possible to "Archive" a computer? Or is deleting them the only thing JSS can do currently?

[larry_barrett]

Put them in a Static Smartgroup, name it [Archive]

[wstewart3]

Doesn't this still eat up a machine license? At this point, about half the items in JSS are most likely not active anymore, or have been surplussed.

[SVM-IT]

Only managed machines count against the license. When we retire a machine we add an entry to the comptuer's history including explaining why it was retired and may include a reference to a help desk ticket number.

[wstewart3]

Ahh I think the problem is I dont know how to mark machines as "unmanaged"? Is there a KB on this? A quick google did not return the results that I wanted.

[sdagley]

@wstewart3 When you're looking at Inventory->General for a computer click the Edit button and you can un-check "Allow Jamf Pro to perform management tasks" to make a computer unmanaged

[eaititig]

The only problem is that you can no longer add the machine to a static group or search for it if you uncheck that.

[sdagley]

No, you can't assign an un-managed Mac to a Group (which makes sense since you have indicated you aren't managing them), but an Advanced Computer Search can still be used to find them and create reports containing them.

[eaititig]

I tried a Smart Group too but the "Managed" field isn't exposed. I never thought about a Saved Search but that works. Thanks.

[wstewart3]

Is there a way to do this using a smart group? Or in Bulk?