Jamf - roll out estimation

[KRIECCO]

I would like to know what your experience is regarding Jamf roll out. Of course there is the main setup where defining the needs etc. But when starting to roll out to each mac, how much "trouble" have you experienced. Have about 200 mac that today are not managed at all

I suppose it is not needed to wipe them completely to put on the Jamf agent or what is your experience?

I would just like to have an feel of what time frame I should expect, if we say that one person should do the rollout to each Mac, if we are talking 6 weeks or 6 month . But guess some in here should have some experience ?

[jefff]

It usually takes between 5 and 10 minutes per machine to enroll a machine. Having rolled out Jamf Pro twice at 2 different employers, I would have to say that the answer to how long the entire process takes depends on how accessible the machines are.

Labs and classrooms are the best-case scenario, because those machines can be enrolled any time during the workday that they're not in use, and it's possible to start the enrollment process on another machine while the preceding machine is communicating with the server during enrollment.

Machines assigned to users are more challenging. If enrollment is perceived as voluntary and the individual users are reluctant to have their machines managed, it's a lot more challenging to get on their schedule to do the enrollment. You will need effective communication and the support of management to make it clear that enrollment's important, helpful and mandatory. That, more than anything else, will help you meet an ambitious timeline for enrolling your entire fleet.

[Taylor_Armstron]

Far, far less than you expect.

Do you at least have an "admin" account on all boxes with known passwords? If so, you could just use Recon to enroll the systems. If not, using user-enrollment via the website will take a bit longer, but shouldn't be too long.

FWIW, our initial enrollment was a bit smaller than yours, around 130-140 machines, and I think we had about 85% of them done in 3-4 days. Remainder just took a bit as we tried to get some remote machines brought back in the office/put online/etc. If yours are all in the same location? I'd think a week would be plenty to get them enrolled.

[joshuasee]

If it really is having a person touch each machine, then yes it is going to be slow, but think of ways to avoid that. Do you have any other management architectures in place that could help? We used ARD in the initial deployment, then sent people after the machines that didn't respond. If you have SSH access to the machines, then using the Recon.app to enroll machines is a possibility. If DEP is implemented at your institution, there is an option for after the fact enrollment that would get users prompted to enroll. Combined with a information campaign this could get a substantial number of people to enroll machines on their own.

Installing the agent does not require wiping the machine on macOS. It doesn't on iOS either, but you can get supervision mode, which includes more management options, if you do wipe the device.

[beatlemike]

Depends on your environment and how easy it is to get access to the machines you want to enroll. Let's assume you have major enrollment policies or software installs setup in Jamf yet...

If they are unmanaged and on 10.13.x or higher, it will take less than 5 minutes to do a user initiated enroll.

Older versions of macOS, you can just use the Quickadd package which is a a double click, and usually done in a couple minutes.

If it takes you 6 weeks I would be surprised. In a lab I did 12 machines in 15 minutes. Getting them managed isn't the hard part in my opinion.

[KRIECCO]

So no one has experienced "system errors" somekind when the mac suddenly is going from managed to unmanaged. Of course the policies has to be tested on test machines before role out. But guess if I have some requirements in policy for specific versions, filevault etc there will be some update time needed for each mac, before it is compliant with the Jamf policies set

[beatlemike]

You may run into issues when you apply policies and configuration profiles. If getting your production machines managed quickly is the goal, just don't have it run much if anything at enrollment.

I actually created a site for doing just that. All enrollment policies are ignored by a group with that site as its criteria. Then later I can use Jamf to mass move machines to the correct sites, departments and such. At that point I can begin managing these machines by rolling out the config profiles, and our policies.

[KRIECCO]

The 2 days "jump start" is that enough if you come from nothing - or is more consultant assistance needed ?

[beatlemike]

We were up and running during the jumpstart in our experience. It wasn't until we went to Jamfnation a few months later and I actually saw and heard what other people were doing, that I actually started to grasp the full scope (no pun intended) of things, however. I literally sat in the back of a session and started to completely redo our Jamf, by that evening I had changed everything and we had a much more dynamic setup, and a user friendly zero touch onboarding setup for our DEP Macs.

[sdagley]

@rossoneris The JumpStart will get your Jamf installation up and running, but it's a basic intro. If you can swing it, definitely go for the Jamf certification courses: Jamf Training. And as @beatlemike mentions, the Jamf Nation User Conference is an eye opening experience on what some organizations are doing. Luckily you can find the JNUC videos online here: https://www.jamf.com/resources/jamf-nation-user-conference-2017/

[gachowski]

Use a Carrot to get the user/machines to come to you!!! Self Service, wifi certs, updated macOS anything you can think of that your uses would want.. Free stuff raffle for an Apple shirt, iTunes gift card..........?????

Then use a Stick to get the users that didn't participate.

C

[KRIECCO]

There are some consultants that try to sell their service for 7000 dollar to get the jamf fully up running with all site designs etc as they have experience with other customers, so the only thing needed is deploying them to each machine
Of course in general it is a job I would like to do on my own, as it is part of my job - but on the other side believe I just can do it on my own and build it professional I have my doubts as I would rather not see that I after 3 month have to start over again. But guess a good thing would be to give me the Jamf certification at all levels and see what I manage to setup - and eventually rest that I can not solve can be given to consultans

[Look]

As has sort of been managed before, one of the nice things about JAMF is you enroll machines in their current state without actually doing anything to them. The process is relatively painless at just a few minutes per device and once they are in you can then just put features in piece by piece in a nice careful controlled manner, there is no requirement for a big bang approach where you completely change the user experience over night, although of course you could also do this as well if you wanted...

[KRIECCO]

Thanks for all you replies. Just have an additional one.
Would it make sense to have the jumpstart of the 2 days and then take jamf admin certification or is it better first to work a bit with Jamf, and then take the certification so I am a bit more familiar with it
The Consultants want the 7000 dollars more, but think with a jamf admin certification I should be able to solve most default setup on my own, here thinking about setting up filevault, software update policy etc - and if there is some left overs the consultants could take over, but would be still cheaper then let them do everything.

[Taylor_Armstron]

Definitely wait a bit before you take the class. You'll "know what you don't know" much better, and will be able to take specific lessons from the class and apply to your own setting more easily.

[gachowski]

And before you take the class, take the online training too!!!!

https://docs.jamf.com/education-services/jamf-100-course/2.3/Lesson_1__Course_Introduction.html