Using Sites with Apple Business Manager.

[mhinsz]

Hello.

My organization is very new to using Apple Business Manager. We have 3 site locations defined within our single JSS. In an attempt to ease imaging, I'm curious what workflow other organizations are using to set computers into specific sites when enrolling with DEP.

It appears we can add more MDM servers to Apple Business Manager, but this would simply be adding the same MDM server 3 times in Apple Business Manager, and then using Device Assignments in the Apple Business Manager's console to define the site.

We don't have baked in location information for LDAP that I know of. We could use or create JAMF Pro users that have site/location information, and apply quick-add packages in Self Service that will define the site.

If anyone has thoughts on a preferred method, I'd appreciate any thoughts.

[stevewood]

@mhinsz We have over 90 sites configured in Jamf Pro, and we create a separate MDM server in ABM for each site. This causes a bit of upfront work when Macs are ordered/received because we have to assign the s/n, or order #, in ABM and then enable them in the appropriate MDM Server and PreStage in Jamf Pro. Like I said, it does cause some extra work by the team, but it helps us make sure the Macs end up in the right sites.

Ideally we would like to have one site and automatically assign all Macs to that site, then use a script at enrollment to assign to the proper site. However, we cannot do that because we have business units that are not part of our Jamf Pro implementation, so we wouldn't want those Macs to get automatically assigned to our Jamf Pro server. It's way too complicated to explain.

If you do not have that limitation (meaning all devices your org orders go into your Jamf Pro server), you could create one MDM server in Jamf Pro and ABM, let ABM auto assign to that MDM server and then use a script during the enrollment process (triggered On Enrollment Complete) that would ask the technician which site the device belongs to. Inside the script you could then use an API call to set the site for that Mac before continuing on with your provisioning. You could use cocoaDialog or jamfHelper to do so. I would stay away from using an AppleScript call just because of the PPPC controls in Mojave.