Jamf Pro 10 Timing Update

[deanhager]

Dear Jamf Nation,

I know you are eagerly awaiting the general availability of Jamf Pro 10. And, with our recent release of zero-day support for new Apple operating systems in 9.98 and additional functionality in 9.99, you are probably wondering where Jamf Pro 10 is. For those of you new to Jamf, Jamf Pro 10 is our next major release that includes a complete refresh of the user experience, a brand new Self Service app for Mac and expanded patch management capabilities.

We have been working extremely hard to deliver version 10, but unfortunately it is taking longer than we thought. Many of you may recall what I stated during the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC) opening session last October. Specifically, I said:

"When can you expect to see version 10? Our intent is to ship version 10 in the first half of 2017. We are also planning to do at least three betas of it."

Admittedly, I was a bit vague about our version 10 release schedule, which I also explained at JNUC:

"Ultimately, at the end of the day, we want product readiness to dictate when our product is going to go out the door – not any date that I committed to you."

So, where is Jamf Pro 10? Simply put, the product isn’t ready yet. I completely own the expectations I set for you at JNUC, and I apologize for the timeframe being delayed. It’s 100 percent on me.

In hindsight, the time and effort to deliver version 10 shouldn’t have been a surprise to us since we have literally updated every single screen in Jamf Pro and have completely reinvented Mac Self Service. We tend to be an optimistic bunch, and it got the better of us. We will learn from this and get better in the future, while still attempting to be as transparent as possible with you.

With that, I want to assure you that we are continuing full speed ahead on Jamf Pro 10. We’re now near code completion on the product and on track to beta the release sometime in Q3. Because of the significant enhancements, we plan to conduct a lengthy beta. We want you to be comfortable with the new interface and Self Service, and give you time to provide feedback, and prepare for the rollout. Most importantly, we want to ensure the performance and quality exceed your expectations. It is also important to note that version 10 will be delivered after our final release of version 9, which will support Apple’s new operating systems in September. We don’t want to require you to take on a major Jamf version upgrade to take advantage of the latest Apple features. We also don’t want to release a significant version upgrade at the very beginning of a new school year. We believe it is wiser to lengthen the beta period, deliver another release of version 9 and come out with a high quality version 10 when it is ready.

We encourage you to participate by enrolling in the beta program on Jamf Nation, which we will post as soon as it is available. Once you enroll, you will get your own Jamf Pro Server in the cloud, giving you the ability to test important workflows and participate in specific Jamf Pro 10 discussions.

As we progress toward beta, I’d like to show you the progress we’ve made. Check out the link below to a page with a video about what life will be like with Jamf Pro 10.

https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-pro/preview/

In addition to the video and keeping watch for the beta, I strongly encourage you to reserve your spot at the 2017 Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC), October 24-26, in Minneapolis. With about 1,500 attendees, this year’s conference is expected to be the largest yet, and we’ve made some exciting additions to enhance your experience. The community, product and expert sessions are back by popular demand, and we’ve also added two new tracks: how-to and interactive labs. Bottom line… you will have more opportunities to dig-in and get hands-on with Jamf Pro 10 and much more.

Thank you for your support of Jamf Nation.

[bentoms]

@deanhager thankyou for this.

Appreciate the heads up.

[mconners]

Yes, thank you @deanhager for the information.

[sepiemoini]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, @deanhager! Looking forward to JNUC 2017 and the beta release of Jamf Pro 10 :)

[cboatwright]

Thanks for the update, we are greatly looking forward to the new interface!

[emily]

The video is great, thanks for posting that. It's nice to see some of the patching stuff in the wild.

[Graystar]

Thanks for the Information.

[mscottblake]

@deanhager I am disappointed in the end result, but thankful to hear it. Transparency means a great deal to me; I hate being shrouded in secrecy.

Does this mean that other development projects will continue to sit on hold, or are you to a point where Jamf Pro 10 no longer needs as many resources and you can shift some of your focus to other areas of need, such as JDS 2.0, JCDS for on-prem installs, or Casper Remote via JSS web interface?

[smithjw]

I loved the video and where v10 is headed but why oh why, didn't you use an iPad Air/Pro outline in the video :D

[deanhager]

@mscottblake Not quite yet. But yes, as v10 projects complete, teams will naturally be able to roll onto new projects. Plus, we continue to hire aggressively. However, I'm not prepared yet to communicate the next priority list of projects. Suffice is to say we'll all be happy when v10 is out and we embrace a few other items that are important to you and Jamf Nation :) Thanks!

[donmontalvo]

Dean, you and your team's transparency gets my respect! Good things take time.

Can't I most certainly can wait for the Jamf Pro 10 Beta...do we see a milestone blog in our future? :D

[james_ridsdale]

@deanhager

Us English usually say...

"Slowly, slowly catchy monkey."

Translated...

"This means that eventually you will achieve your goal."

[blackholemac]

@deanhager I appreciate the candor of your post. Like everyone else on JamfNation, I would love to get my mitts on a copy of Jamf Pro 10 as early as possible in beta form.

That being said, you definitely are taking the right attitude to this product. If it's not ready I would rather someone tell me that honestly then take the approach of "hey let's get it out the door and we'll fix everything that doesn't work about it in the next service pack or two".

Take that extra time, get it right. As Steve Jobs once said, "delight your customer" which in this case is us and the environments we work with. Good luck and I hope you continue this candor as the beta builds start coming out when you guys are ready.

[roiegat]

<mumbles> I was told there would be Jamf Pro by Q1 2017.....first my red stapler now this</mumbles>

[blackholemac]

@roiegat I've probably got a Swingline somewhere man just don't send remote wipe commands to my Mac!

[strider_knh]

In the future when you post these and other important announcements you may want to pin them to the top of Jamf Nation? I almost didn't see this but a coworker told me about it and then I had to scroll down to find it. Would have been completely lost in another few hours.

You did this when you announce you pulled JSS 9.97, didn't pin it to the top and I had to SEARCH to find an important announcement about a release that was pulled because of a big bug.

[franton]

Appreciate the feedback @deanhager . I was happy to wait for after JNUC / release of macOS 10.13.

I'd rather Jamf got it right than rush it.

[mm2270]

@deanhager Thanks for the info and transparency (I'm sure that's only the 50th time you've heard that by now) It is appreciated!

The video looks great, (the new) Self Service looks awesome! As for the main UI, it looks clean and slick, but I can tell it will take a little time to get used to. I can certainly understand why the team chose to go this way though. This will be a big improvement and hopefully will set the tone for the future of the product as it continues to grow and evolve.

Thanks!

[kerouak]

Have the 'save' buttons been moved to the top??

Will there be an alert such as 'do you really want to navigate away from this page, unsaved changes will be lost"

etc. etc.

I failed my 1st CCA due to this not being available and being taught using an 11' Macbook air....

Just saying.... :-)

[hunter990]

So far it looks pretty awesome and I see a few things addressed I have always wanted. Look forward to the beta and seeing all of the improvements. Looks like it's time to start pushing management for those JNUC tickets.

[deanhager]

You're right @strider.knh. Fixed :)

[jake]

Hey @kerouak - The save buttons will be persistent at the bottom right of the screen so they will always be visible.

[pete_c]

Shaping up to be a great October (10.13, Jamf Pro v10 beta, JNUC, new Blade Runner movie..)

Thanks for the update!

[charles_hitch]

@deanhager you stated

Once you enroll, you will get your own Jamf Pro Server in the cloud, giving you the ability to test important workflows and participate in specific Jamf Pro 10 discussions.

Can/would you comment whether or not the beta will also be available for on-premise testing?

[akarneboge]

Appreciate the information!

[jake]

@charles.hitch - Yes, you will have the ability to download and run the beta's in your own test environment on-premise.

[bradtchapman]

Thank you for the update. Better to do it right than to rush a delivery and chase after an endless infestation of bugs.

[lashomb]

@deanhager The UI looks great as others have stated, but as someone who works in Agile methodologies and automates as much with infrastructure as we can, handling version control and package ingress ("Simply upload a package") manually is disappointing. I'm hopeful there may be some API features that just aren't easy to demonstrate in a video.

Jamf could really take the lead in package management by creating API integrations with companies like Adobe and Microsoft. Imagine pulling packages directly from Adobe, eliminating the packaging step altogether. You guys have the relationships to make something like that happen.

I do look forward to v10, the users are going to absolutely love the new Self Service. Thanks for the preview Dean.

[iaml]

Let's get this out of the way first: I'd rather your ship a good product than release a buggy one. Owning your projection error is an asset, not a weakness. You are correct to proactively notify customers and prospective customers about this.

I'd be a lot more sympathetic, however, if this were a rare occurrence. I remember when Sites was promised in the next major version of Casper — mentioned openly at the trade fair at a major Mac conference — and that version didn't come for at least a year after that. Patch management was also "coming" for the longest time, and when it was finally released last year at this time, it was very narrow in scope.

It might be time for Jamf to take a more Apple-like approach and not pre-announce features/releases until they are at least at a functioning Beta level. I know at our workplace we waited on moving ahead with certain things — first with patch management, then again with Jamf Pro 10 — that have made us less functional than we should be at this time. We are relatively new Jamf customers, so lack of delivery also leads to lack of lock-in and the increased likelihood that a competitor could come in and take our business from you.

It is certainly in Jamf's best interest to be transparent, but it is also in the company's best interest to not string customers along. Sharing my perspective in the hope that it is useful feedback.

Anthony Reimer

[dvasquez]

Excellent and thank you for the heads up.

[kerouak]

@jake

NICE ONE!!

I'm loving it already :-)

[blackholemac]

@iaml while I agree with keeping the bugs at bay until something is ready to release, I respectfully disagree on your pre-announcing new features position (focused on the respectfully part) and will also use Apple as my example.

In the K-12 EDU realm, I have four levels of planning and possible maintenance windows in my org:

1. our next weekly maintenance window (we get half an hour to an hour of downtime... which is more than most places, BUT we typically plan very minor upgrades during those times and do not like doing one every week. On average we only use these once a month unless something is just bad.

2. Our next fall break/spring break/teachers institute day. Basically we use these for something that takes more than an hour of planning/implementation (up to 2-3 hours)

3. Christmas break ( we can count on staff/students being out effectively during this time and can do a mid year fix but not a complete overhaul of systems.)

4. Summer break... this is when we prefer to handle major changes to our ecosystem. Though with new state guidelines and summer school programs, this window this year his winnowed down to one month.

Now to get back to Apple... they tend to release their new major operating systems in September/October timeframe. This already breaks our maintenance schedules completely. We've had to learn to deal with them because it is impossible to change their minds. And many times our application software vendors expect us to upgrade whether we want to or not. Then in the spring Apple typically launches new EDU features which come right around spring break but are too late to implement properly until the next summer for the next school year.

In short, the moral of the story for us anyway, we LOVE knowing what is coming even if it doesn't make it into a finished product because we only plan around shipping products/features, not announcements. That effectively gives us veto power over when and what we implement. If nothing else, with pre-announced features, I least come away knowledgeable of how something should work by the time it ships and can plug and chug at the next appropriate maintenance window.

Again I emphasize the respectful disagreement part..your organization may be different and have different needs. Ours on the other hand, the more we know the better.

[deanhager]

@iaml, @blackholemac and all Jamf Nation contributors... This discussion is why I love this community. I appreciate your perspectives. Your points are fair and thoughtful. Thank you for helping us get better.

[s_oconnor]

Looks promising. I'm not sure if I miss heard or not, I was hoping that for Patch Management when new definitions were released, it would be able to go and grab that package and have it available (not automatically push, just say it is ready and let the jss admin choose if they want to push). Same concept for showing who is updated and who is not. Just one less step of us having to go out get the package then upload. :)

[ryanstayloradob]

The new UI looks impressive and Self Service is something our clients will love. The more it resembles the App Store, the better. We've already got our 9.98 Self Service app functioning like the App Store, thanks to IBM. It's more work up front, but it provides a much better user experience.

In response to @sabrina.oconnor, we're working on reducing the number of packages we have to create, download and manage. We're using scripts to curl and install commonly used packages from common vendors. For patch management in Jamf Pro 10, we would really like to see packages automatically uploaded or made available rather than jss admins having to download each package. The video says when a new update is available, simply go download the package, upload it and it will scope. That sounds simple, and it is technically, but it seems antiquated and kludgy now.

[erin_miska]

@sabrina.oconnor and @ryanstayloradobe - In Jamf Pro 10, the focus for patch management is simplifying the scoping and deployment aspects of the workflow, as well as improving the end user experience. For now, you'll still have to create your own packages and get them uploaded. We'll have a better solution for that in a future release.

[nzmacgeek]

@deanhager - here in New Zealand we very much appreciate your approach of fronting up and owning the responsibility of getting our hopes up with regards to Jamf Pro 10. We are looking forward to getting our hands on a robust, feature-complete and polished product when it becomes available. In the meantime, we will be content with testing the betas as we always do!

[kerouak]

My own personal preference...

I would always like to wait a little longer for a more stable, less 'buggy release.
We see it so often, when a pre release is available, lots of folk are very quick to point out flaws and rubbish the version.
TOP MARKS to JAMF for your considered approach.

As the old saying goes "All good things come to he who waits"

Evangelism isn't dead.

[kerouak]

@deanhager EXACTLY!

[edickson]

@deanhager I appreciate JAMF not releasing version 10 until it's really ready to go, will be worth the wait I'm sure.