Supervise devices with Apple Configurator
Supervision gives your organization more control over the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV devices you own, allowing restrictions such as disabling AirDrop or Apple Music, or placing the device in Single App Mode. It also provides additional device configurations and features, so you can do things like silently install apps and filter web usage using a global proxy, to ensure that users’ web traffic stays within the organization’s guidelines.
By default, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV devices are not supervised. You can, however, set up devices as supervised prior to activation—that is, before the Setup Assistant first appears on a new or fully erased device. You may want to combine supervision and remote management with a mobile device management (MDM) solution to manage additional settings and restrictions.
With Apple School Manager, Apple Business Manager, or Apple Business Essentials, you can wirelessly enable supervision on a device as part of the setup process. You can also manually enable supervision using Apple Configurator.
Determine whether an iPhone or iPad is already supervised
Here’s how you can determine whether a device is supervised:
In iOS 9.3 or later, look for a message at the bottom of the Lock Screen saying “This [iPhone or iPad] is managed by your organization.” You can also go to Settings > General > About and look for this line of text under the name of the device: “This [iPhone or iPad] is supervised. [Organization name] can monitor your internet traffic and locate this device.”
In iOS 7 to iOS 9.2, go to Settings > General > About and look for this line of text under the name of the device: “This [iPhone or iPad] is supervised by [organization name].”
In iOS 6 or later, you can use a mobile device management (MDM) solution to query a device to determine whether it’s supervised. Contact your MDM vendor for specific details to accomplish this task.
In iOS 5 and iOS 6, go to Settings > General > Profiles and look for a Supervision Profile.