Apple Device Enrollment with MobileIron Core overview

Apple Device Enrollment allows you to quickly and easily deploy a fleet of corporate-owned iOS, macOS, and tvOS devices. With Apple Device Enrollment, organizations such as universities and corporations can purchase, enroll, and manage Apple devices en masse. After purchasing Apple devices, administrators enroll devices and manage the devices using a Mobile Device Management (MDM) server such as MobileIron Core. Apple Device Enrollment and MobileIron Core are linked so that they can easily communicate and new devices assigned to the Apple Device Enrollment account can be synchronized with Core.

Changes in Device Enrollment

The original Apple Device Enrollment portal had three sections that represented device enrollment: MDM Servers, Device Assignments and Assignment History. These three are represented in MobileIron Core as "Apple Device Enrollment." There are two types of device enrollment programs that Core manages: Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager. Apple no longer allows new customers to sign up for the legacy Device Enrollment Program (DEP) portal at deploy.apple.com. New accounts with Apple Device Enrollment will be provisioned on Apple Business Manager.

Apple Business Manager

Apple Business Manager is a place for IT teams to automate device deployment, purchase and distribute content, and manage roles in their organizations. Working seamlessly with MobileIron Core, you can enroll devices, deploy content, and delegate administrative privileges.

The Device Enrollment Program (DEP) and the Volume Purchase Program (VPP) are now integrated into Apple Business Manager, so you can bring together everything needed to deploy iOS devices, Mac computers, and Apple TV into your organization. In Core, the terms "Device Enrollment Program (DEP) is now renamed to "Apple Device Enrollment" and "Device Enrollment." "Volume Purchase Program" (VPP) has been renamed to "Apple Licenses."

Apple School Manager

Apple School Manager is a simple, web-based portal for IT administrators to deploy iOS, macOS, and tvOS devices all from one place. When used with MobileIron Core, you can configure device settings and buy and distribute apps and books. Apple School Manager integrates with Student Information Systems (SISs) so you can quickly create accounts with school rosters and classes.

To enroll in Apple School Manager, see the Apple School Manager User Guide on the Apple website. A login is required..

Apple Device Enrollment features

Using Apple Device Enrollment for large-scale deployments, you can:

  • deploy devices without having to touch them
  • automate mobile device management (MDM) enrollment
  • enable device supervision, including restrictions
  • skip some Setup Assistant screens, allowing device users to use their devices immediately

Apple Device Enrollment setup

The main steps of setting up Apple Device Enrollment are:

  1. Enrolling in the Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager programs.
  2. Linking to your MDM server, in this case, MobileIron Core.
  3. Assigning devices to Core. For assigning multi-user devices, see Configuring devices in bulk for Apple School Manager.
  4. Applying MDM configurations, as desired.

The MDM server you are linking to is MobileIron Core. After setting up Apple Device Enrollment, you use MobileIron Core to secure and manage your devices, and apply MDM configurations.

NOTE: If you configure your devices to be supervised, you can apply additional restrictions through MobileIron Core.

Best practices for managing devices in Apple Device Enrollment

Following are some best practices to keep in mind for managing enrolled devices in a Device Enrollment Program:

  • You can enroll devices in an Apple Device Enrollment you previously registered in Core, as long as you wipe and retire these devices first.
  • Use Apple Device Enrollment to purchase a large group of devices, which you can more easily manage in Core.

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