Pre-stage enrollment questions

[Surfone9]

Hello. I am fairly new to Jamf Pro and in the process of learning while cleaning up some of the work that was created before me. I have a question regarding pre-stage enrollments and the best practice for moving forward. Currently, our iPads are not automatically assigned to a pre-stage enrollment as we have 4 different pre-stage enrollments. This leads to devices never being enrolled in Jamf as they are shipped out to the end user. I would like to automatically assign all iPads to our generic DEP pre-stage enrollment and then manually move the ones we need in a different pre-stage enrollment. We will not need to do this often and this will at least allow us to have all iPads enrolled in management. Am I correct in thinking that devices already assigned to a different pre-stage enrollment will stay there after this change is made, even if wiped? It is my understanding you can only have devices in one pre-stage enrollment at a time and you have to unselect the one it is currently assigned to before assigning it to another? It's been a crazy week already and I just want to make sure I'm thinking clearly! Also, would having just one DEP pre-stage enrollment and then assigning to a different configuration profile be the better option? Say for example, I have 50 iPads for Facilities, couldn't that just be a config profile and not a separate pre-stage enrollment like it is now? Thanks 

[AJPinto · Accepted solution]

It does sound like you have a few too many Prestage configurations. Generally speaking, you want all your devices going to a single Prestage, and to assign devices out from that if needed for random things like a hard defined user and location or a device name that does not follow your typical standards.

You are correct in assuming that a device can only be assigned to a single Prestage. When you make this change, it will not impact devices until they go through activation next. Caveat, I am not sure if iPadOS supports forced enrollment with DDM like macOS does. 

You would want to do the following:

• Check the box "Automatically assign new devices" in the preferred prestage. 
• Go through the scope of your preferred prestage and manually assign any unassigned devices.
  • Note: you cannot move a device to a different prestage until unassigning it from its current prestage, so no worries about messing up something already configured.