How to Automate User assignments with Mobile Devices?

[EB_HC]

So I'm hitting a wall with the last piece of my zero touch deployment.

My organization is looking to begin deploying ~150 iPads each year to students. We've run a beta group and I've got the unboxing and setup experience all automated how we want where we just hand them the box and they're ready to go. My last hurdle is assigning the specific User in Jamf to the specific iPad they end up with in hand.

For the Beta I just manually wrote on each box which student it would belong to and kept a spreadsheet with the the serial number/User assignments. Then after the devices powered on used MUT to bulk update the entries in Jamf to reflect the spreadsheet.

Is there any way I can avoid having to write and keep track of ~150 names and serial numbers each year? It's not the end of the world but I'd like to eliminate as much human error as I can. Maybe there's a way the student can enter their User info when first setting up the device?

Open to any recommendations!

[jcarr · Accepted solution]

Do your students know their email & password for your directory (e.g. Azure, Google Workspace)?  If so, have them sign in using authenticated enrollment when you hand out the devices.  Once the device is enrolled, Jamf will do a lookup for that user in the the directory and assign the device record to that user record.

Additionally, you will probably want to Federate with the same directory (Azure or Google) so they can sign into their Managed Apple ID using the same credentials.