Hi all,
I'm interested in how other organisations are provisioning corporate iPhones using Apple Business Manager/ADE and Intune, particularly around Apple IDs, Company Portal and automated app deployment.
Our current process is roughly:
- Factory reset the corporate iPhone.
- Go through Setup Assistant and Automated Device Enrollment.
- The iPhone recognises that it belongs to our organisation and installs the Intune MDM management profile.
- We ask the user to create an Apple ID using their company email address and sign into it on the corporate iPhone.
- Company Portal is installed and the user signs into it with their corporate Microsoft account.
- The device completes registration/compliance.
- The user then installs/receives the apps they need.
The Apple ID requirement is the part I'm trying to improve.
Creating an Apple ID with the user's company email adds extra steps to every new starter setup. It also creates additional offboarding work because when somebody leaves or returns their phone, we need to make sure they sign out of the Apple ID/Find My before the device is erased and reissued, otherwise we potentially have Activation Lock to deal with.
Our existing ADE profile is configured with:
- Enroll with User Affinity
- Authentication Method: Company Portal
- Install Company Portal with VPP: Don't use VPP
I'm wondering how organisations using a more modern Intune/ADE configuration handle this.
Ideally I'd like our provisioning experience to be:
Turn on corporate iPhone â Automated Device Enrollment â Intune manages the device â required apps automatically install â user authenticates using their corporate Microsoft account â device becomes compliant â Outlook, Teams and other required corporate apps are automatically deployed.
Ideally there would be no requirement to create an Apple ID just to provision and use the corporate device.
We also use third-party apps such as Workday, Eptura etc, so ideally these could be deployed automatically as required managed apps as well.
For those managing corporate iPhones at scale:
Are you deploying Company Portal and your standard corporate apps through Apple Business Manager Apps and Books/VPP using device-based licensing, so users don't need an Apple ID?
Are you still using Company Portal authentication with ADE, or have you moved to Setup Assistant with modern authentication / the newer Intune Apple enrollment policies?
Do your users need an Apple ID at all during initial corporate iPhone provisioning?
And are you automatically deploying apps such as Outlook, Teams and third-party business apps so that the phone is essentially ready for the employee once they've authenticated?
I'd be really interested to hear what other organisations' end-to-end new starter and device-reassignment processes look like. I'm trying to make ours much smoother for both Service Desk and the end user.