Utilizing pre-stage enrollments to automate grouping

[schickp]

Hello,

We are fairly new to using Jamf in our organization. We have about 2500 iOS devices in our organization. We have been using static groups to group classroom sets, as we push classroom specific apps and profiles. We wipe all of our devices every year and this causes an issue since we're utilizing static groups. After you wipe a device, we've notcied the device loses it's association with the static group and you have to re-assign it to that group. We've used MUT in the past, but we wanted to figure out a way to automate this process.

We landed on using pre-stage enrollments for each classroom set, then funneling those devices into their own smart groups. Currently we have one default pre-stage enrollment that all of our devices go through. We want to have a pre-stage for each class and utilize the department, building, room, and position criteria to route them into smart groups. Then scoping our classroom apps/profiles into these specific smart groups. That way we can skip the process of using MUT to re-assign them into their static groups and completely automate this process.

Does anyone use this process in their organization, how do you like it? We are planning on using MUT to assign devices to each individual pre-stage. Seems like a lot of setup, but in the long run its very sustainable.

[landon_Starr]

That's how we're setup. We have a TON of buildings and departments, and while setting up the prestages was a lot of work initially, it beats constantly maintaining a long list of static groups.

[AndrewLee]

At our school district I created a Prestage, or more, depending on how the iPads need to be distributed, for each incoming Purchase Order. In addition to having the iOS devices retain their settings after a reset, the Prestages are also used to track back which Purchase Orders the iPad SNs belong to. Without a GSX account, this is the simplest way to track the SNs, Apple Sales Order Numbers and POs.

We have less than 75 POs per year, so having at least 1 Prestage per PO is manageable.

[drhoten]

Hello @schickp, have you taken a look at the new Inventory Preload workflow introduced in Jamf Pro 10.8?

You can upload a CSV file or use the Jamf Pro API to pre-assign device information to devices based on the serial number, so when the device is enrolled (or re-enrolled) that information will automatically associated with the devices. This applies to devices using either Automated MDM Enrollment or User-Initiated Enrollment.