Supervise devices with Apple Configurator for Mac
Supervision generally denotes that the device is owned by the organization, which provides additional control over its configuration and restrictions. There are various ways that organizations can supervise devices; some types vary by platform.
When a device is supervised, you’re granted ongoing control over its configuration, and you can reapply that configuration at any time just by reconnecting the device to the Mac with Apple Configurator installed.
By default, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV devices aren’t 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 device management service to manage additional settings and restrictions.
With Apple School Manager or Apple Business, you can wirelessly enable supervision on a device as part of the setup process. You can also manually enable supervision using Apple Configurator.
Some payloads and restrictions are available only for supervised devices. For information about supervised-only restrictions, see Device management restrictions for supervised Apple devices in Apple Platform Deployment.
Determine whether an iPhone or iPad is already supervised
In iOS 9.3 or later, look for a message at the bottom of the Lock Screen saying “This [iPhone][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.”