Mac apps remain in pending upon device enrollment

[RyanTBeck]

I have a number of Mac Apps (Office suite and Google Chrome are among them) configured to install when a new Mac is enrolled in our Jamf Pro system. The install of these apps seems to be pretty inconsistent and I'm not sure where they get hung up.

Some times, a handful of the apps will install just fine, while others don't appear within a few hours of enrollment. Other times, nothing will install. I've looked at deployment status and they are often sitting in "In Progress" seemingly indefinitely. 

I've reset my test MacBook several times through the course of the day with no change. I've pushed our policies as well. This issue is not every time, as very occasionally all apps will install within an hour or two and a couple restarts, but happens more often than not.

[cheder22]

I would suggest you look into the installomator project so you don’t need manually package or upload anything. Just host the script and run the policy. I’ve never been a fan of the VPP process as it has broken over the years and is unclear as to why something isn’t installing, I have found that it’s usually a versioning issue or a network issue stalling it out. JAMF also recently introduced the Mac app catalog which is essentially the packages similar to what installomator uses(source) and have been vetted and packed by JAMF, it’s in preview and more flexibility should be coming soon, it’s built off kinobi.

[sdagley · Accepted solution]

@RyanTBeck Installing Microsoft Office apps via the Mac App Store isn't really recommended. See https://macadmins.software/mas/ for a list of common issues. The full Office suite installer available from https://macadmins.software/ will work much better for deployment via a Jamf Pro policy and will be significantly faster than trying to install the apps individually (via MAS, Installomator, or the Jamf App Catalog). You should also take a look at @kevinmcox 's blog posts regarding Microsoft AutoUpdate which are a great resource for controlling how updates are applied: https://www.kevinmcox.com/tag/microsoft-autoupdate/

[RyanTBeck]

The policy approach worked great! I deployed the package installer and office suite was installed in a couple minutes after updating the policy.

[sdagley]

@RyanTBeck Glad to hear the Office suite installer is working for you. Be sure to look at the blog posts linked in my previous reply on configuring Microsoft AutoUpdate to keep things updated.