What is the Apple Device Enrollment Program?
The Apple Device Enrollment Program (DEP), which is now part of Apple Business Manager, allows organizations to streamline the device setup process of newly purchased Apple devices. Specifically, organizations can configure their devices, during device initialization, to:
- Automatically enroll in SimpleMDM
- Enable supervision
- Prevent users from unenrolling devices from SimpleMDM
- Skip basic setup steps
When paired, SimpleMDM configures the devices in your DEP account according to the settings in your SimpleMDM account.
For more information on Apple Business Manager, check out this article from our blog.
How to Connect SimpleMDM to DEP
SimpleMDM needs to link to your DEP account so that it can configure devices to use the SimpleMDM service. To link Apple DEP to SimpleMDM, a certificate must be exchanged between the accounts to establish a secure, trusted relationship.
Complete the following steps to link your DEP account:
- Sign into SimpleMDM.
- Click the "Enrollments" link on the left hand side of the screen.
- On the Enrollments page, click the "Add Enrollment" button.
- Select "Automated Enrollment (DEP)".
- Follow the on-screen steps based on whether you are using Apple Business Manager or a legacy Apple DEP account. These steps will guide you through the certificate exchange process.
Once you have uploaded your Apple server token, SimpleMDM will link to your Apple Business Manager account and be granted access for automated enrollments.
