Assign, reassign, or unassign devices in Apple Business
Overview
Your account contains a record of all the orders you have placed directly with Apple after March 1, 2011. Because accounts with participating Apple Authorized Resellers or authorized cellular carriers may not keep records going back to March 1, 2011, consult them for your account’s order timeline.
Before you can assign devices, you need to have entered your appropriate Apple Customer Number and/or communicated your Organization ID to a participating Apple Authorized Reseller or an authorized cellular carrier and added their Reseller Number to your account. See Manage device suppliers.
Note: When entering your Apple Customer Number, omit any leading zeros.
You need to assign a device to a device management service so that Setup Assistant displays the pane to enroll the device in that service.
Device assignment
For devices that you enroll in Apple Business with Device Enrollment or User Enrollment, you need to add them to the organization before you can assign them to the built-in device management service.
For devices that you enroll in the built-in device management service, you need to sign them out and unenroll them before you can assign them to another device management service.
Service assignment per device appears in two places:
Device list: The device list shows the service assignment before a user signs into the device, at which point the list shows the user’s name.
Device record: The device record shows no service under the Device Management Service list until a user enrolls the device.
A device that you assign to the Apple Business device management service shows as unavailable for assignment to that service again from the Edit Device Management Service action on the device page.
To find assigned devices for the Apple Business device management service, use the filters in the device list. See How to search.
You can assign devices to the Apple Business device management service in three ways:
Individual assignment
Batch assignment
Default assignment
Make sure sensitive data is secure
During the device configuration process, you can increase the security of sensitive data by ensuring that you have appropriate security measures in place. For example:
Have your users authenticate as part of the initial setup flow in the Apple device’s Setup Assistant during activation.
Provide a preliminary configuration with limited access and require additional device configuration to access sensitive data.
Choose how you want to assign devices
After an order ships, you can search for the order number and use it to assign devices to an authorized device management service. For example, when you place an iPhone order for 5000 units, you can use the order number to assign all, or a specific number of, devices to an existing authorized device management service. There are several ways to assign devices:
Device Management: You can reassign devices from one device management service to another. For example, you may want to spread the load of 10,000 devices from one single service to three or four.
Source: You can assign devices from different sources. For example, you may purchase all iPhone and iPad devices from one source and all Mac computers from another. The sources are:
Apple (Apple Customer Number)
Apple Authorized Reseller or an authorized cellular carrier
AppleCare (for replaced devices)
Apple Configurator (for devices added manually)
Order number: Assigning devices by order number makes sense if you use a single device management service for an entire device deployment (or a single order), and if devices are still in their original packaging and are going directly to the users.
Device type: You can assign devices by type and model to a specific device management service. This method makes sense if the devices you need to assign are all managed in an identical manner. You can search for device types using the search field at the top of the window.
Storage size: You can assign devices based on the amount of storage they have at the time of purchase or manual enrollment. For example, you may want to assign all MacBook Pro computers with 1 terabyte of storage to a device management service that your graphics department uses.
Serial number: You can paste up to 1024 serial numbers from a text file, with each serial number separated by a comma.
Set the default device assignment
You can set the default assignment for each device type to the device management service of your choice. Apple Business applies this setting when you add devices to the organization. Existing devices need to be added manually.
In Apple Business, sign in with a user whose role has permissions to assign devices to device management services.
To view roles and permissions, see Intro to roles and permissions.
In your browser, choose Devices > Management Services.
Choose one of the following:
Default Device Assignment, then select a device management service for each device type.
Select an existing service under Device Management Services, select Edit under Default Device Assignment, then select a device type for that service.
Select Save.
Any devices you add after you select Save are automatically assigned to that device management service.
Assign, reassign, or unassign a single device
In Apple Business, sign in with a user whose role has permissions to assign devices to device management services.
To view roles and permissions, see Intro to roles and permissions.
If necessary, search for the device in the search field. See How to search.
After you locate the device, select it.
Choose one of the following:
Assign Device Management, then select the device management service you want to assign or reassign the device to.
Unassign Device Management to unassign the device from a device management service.
Note: If you select a device that’s unassigned, you won’t see the unassigned option.
Select Continue.
Carefully read the dialog, then select Confirm.
A new activity is created.
Choose one of the following:
Stop the activity.
View the activity.
Select Close.
Wait for the activity to complete, then select Done.
Assign, reassign, or unassign multiple devices
In Apple Business, sign in with a user whose role has permissions to assign devices to device management services.
To view roles and permissions, see Intro to roles and permissions.
Search for devices in the search field. See How to search.
After you locate the devices, select the total number of devices.
Choose one of the following:
Assign Device Management, then select the device management service you want to assign or reassign the devices to.
Unassign Device Management to unassign the devices from a device management service.
Note: If you select devices that are unassigned, you won’t see the unassigned option.
Select Continue.
Carefully read the dialog, then select Confirm.
A new activity is created.
Choose one of the following:
Stop the activity.
View the activity.
Select Close.
Wait for the activity to complete, then select Done.