Apple Business is exclusively offered by Mosyle; Mosyle is the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates all the necessary tools to deploy, manage, and secure Apple devices in the workplace seamlessly and automatically on a single professional-grade platform. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to effortlessly and cost-effectively get millions of Apple devices up and running. Request your extended trial today and understand that Mosyle has everything you need to work with Apple.

Apple Business Manager (and Apple School Manager) forms the foundation of the modern Apple IT management experience. However, if a Mac is not in this system, device management is a completely different situation. You may have a number of Macs purchased through the consumer channel or acquired from a company merger. If you want to add these devices to Apple Business Manager, you will usually need to wipe the device. So, what if you don't want to do that? This is where add2abm comes into play.

About Apple Business: Bradley Chambers managed a corporate IT network from 2009 to 2021. With experience in firewalls, switches, mobile device management systems, enterprise-level Wi-Fi, deploying and managing thousands of Macs and thousands of iPads, Bradley will highlight how Apple IT administrators deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, share stories from the front lines of IT management, and suggest ways Apple can improve its products for IT departments.

What Do You Think About Apple Configurator?

If you are using Apple Configurator to add a Mac to your organization, you usually have to wipe the entire machine. This is unacceptable for a device already in the hands of an employee. A full backup requires a long morning to completely wipe the device and restore the data. add2abm offers you a potential solution.

This tool allows you to re-trigger the Setup Assistant on an already configured Mac without wiping data. It tricks the system into thinking it’s a new device by temporarily removing the Apple setup flag and carrying over local user records.

This is a significant opportunity for IT administrators who need to enable Automated Device Enrollment on hardware already in use by an employee. The entire process is completely reversible. You run a script to hide users, add the Mac to your server with your iPhone, and then run the script again to put everything back in place.

How It Works

The workflow requires physical access to the device and access to macOS Recovery, but here are the steps:

  1. Shut down the Mac
  2. Hold the Touch ID/power button to start macOS Recovery
  3. Authenticate as the volume owner
  4. Connect to the internet
  5. Open Utilities
  6. Open Terminal
  7. Run the script to back up and restart user records
  8. Unlock the disk during boot, if encrypted
  9. Proceed to the Country and Region step in the Setup Assistant
  10. Bring the iPhone with Apple Configurator next to the Mac
  11. Add the computer to the preferred MDM server in ABM/ASM
  12. Shut down the Mac when successful
  13. Hold the Touch ID/power button again to enter Options (macOS Recovery) mode
  14. Authenticate as the volume owner
  15. Connect to the network (if not connected)
  16. Open Utilities → Terminal (or use ⌘⇧T)
  17. Run the script again to restore user records from backup and restart
  18. Unlock the disk during boot, if encrypted
  19. Agree to macOS Terms and Conditions
  20. Log in to your local user account
  21. Run sudo profiles renew -type enrollment in Terminal to force the Automated Device Enrollment workflow (local admin account required)

After the final restart, you will log in to your original user account. The data on the disk remains intact, but the Mac is now officially recognized in Apple Business Manager and can be assigned to your device management server.

Final Notes

This tool is a significant gain for Apple IT administrators with different deployment modes. It eliminates the need to wipe a device to enter ABM. One thing to note: make sure the device is not Find My enabled on an Apple account. I would love to see an officially supported method from Apple, but this would eliminate the need to restore the device. Check it out on GitHub.

Apple Business is exclusively offered by Mosyle; Mosyle is the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates all the necessary tools to deploy, manage, and secure Apple devices in the workplace seamlessly and automatically on a single professional-grade platform. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to effortlessly and cost-effectively get millions of Apple devices up and running. Request your extended trial today and understand that Mosyle has everything you need to work with Apple.