DEP devices can skip enrollment via backup restore

[Sandy]

Hi,

We are in early stages of iPad refresh for staff. restoring from backup from their 2018 device

The new devices are assigned to a new prestage.

If a staff member restores from the backup made on their old device, then DEP proceeds as normal and device is managed. If a staff member has an issue and moves to a second new device, then the backup from the original NEW device to another NEW device completely skips DEP and the device is set free.

I could see a fix for this might be to create yet another prestage and move them once ALL are activated but that might take some time and would likely have ramifications for smart groups etc. Also a pretty big HOLE in the meanwhile, is this expected behavior? if it is it is terrible.

[sdagley]

@Sandy That is the normal behavior. You never want to restore an MDM managed device, be it iPad, iPhone, or Mac.

[RLR]

I've posted on several threads before about how bad iCloud restores are. It's not worth your time in troubleshooting the issues that come with it. Just ask staff to backup their work to a the cloud like Google Drive. A lot of apps also support icloud sync now so just by signing into their iCloud account will sync there documents as if you did a iCloud restore.

[Sandy]

Interesting, however that has not been our experience. This will be our second refresh of teacher iPads with DEP activation and third refresh where we have used iCloud restores successfully for about 500 staff devices. We have also used them between refreshes to move staff to a new iPad when needed. The only issue we have is the old iPad's name comes over to the new iPad. Other than that folks get their setups moved successfully.

[SRuss2017]

I have this issue with iPads but not on iPhones. Have you had any luck lately?

[Sandy]

Hi, @SRuss2017 

We did an iPad refresh last spring, going from Gen 6 to Gen 9 ipads. Many teachers restored from iCloud backups during Activation, with no issues.  All the iPads old and new are in DEP, but staff use their own  <not managed> Apple IDs.

Sandy

[SRuss2017]

Thanks, We are looking at moving our iOS devices over to JAMF and this was the only issue I have left that is causing some grief, with a restore on a iPad and not getting DEP auto enrollment to show up. Thanks, at least I know it works.