You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I am taking on MDM for a customer who claims to have purchased 4 iPads directly from Apple and Apple's online store. To set up Business Manager for them, I need to have the reseller ID, which I have to assume Apple could easily supply. But I can't find it anywhere.
Where should I go to get this?
Thank you!
iPad Pro (5th generation)
Good job going ABM and MDM. However, you need to understand the purchase process to ensure automatic device assignment. Remember, ABM is all about asset chain of custody. This means the entire process of purchase must be within the links of trust (customer business entity > reseller (optional) > Apple).
If the customer bought via the retail channel ("directly from Apple and Apple's online store," or other retail channels like Amazon for example), then the assets cannot be automatically associated to ABM since chain of custody cannot be proven. If the customer is buying direct from Apple, they must reach out to the Business Sales team in the store. The customer will then be assigned an Apple Customer ID. This ID will be associated with the ABM and all future purchases made through the Business sales team will be automatically assigned. Going to apple.com or walking in a making a retail purchase is not eligible for ABM association. If the customer is large enough and they plan on purchasing at least $5000 annually, you can ask the Business Sales team to spin up an eCommerce portal. This is a custom Apple online store just for your customer. You as the consultant can be made a recommender. This will allow the customer to order without going to the store or calling a Business Sales associate.
If the customer wants to buy from someone other than Apple, they must seek a reseller who can participate in the device enrollment program. In this case, your customer provides the reseller with their organization ID (available in ABM) and the reseller provider the customer (or you) with their reseller ID (you must enter it into ABM to complete the link in the chain). This allows the reseller to assign hardware to the customer's ABM.
For the 4 iPads that have already been purchased, you will likely not be able to get Apple to backload them since I will assume these were made through the retail sales channel. However, all hope is not lost. For these three units, you can use Apple Configurator (on iPhone or Mac) and you can side load the units into ABM. Please note, side loading does offer a 30 day opt out period. However, few users will seek this. By side loading the hardware assets, you can manually inject the hardware into ABM, thus allowing automated enrollment from your MDM. Side loading will require you to erase the device. If you have already started using the 4 iPads, make sure data is backed up before starting the side loading process.
Pro tip: If you use Configurator on iPhone, you can select the MDM you want the device assigned to. If you add via Configurator for Mac you will need to log into ABM and reassign from "Configurator" to your MDM server.
Also, depending on your MDM, you may need to wait 15 minutes or longer (24 hours (looking at you Intune)) for the device sync to complete. In your MDM, check your pre-stage to visually confirm the device has been assigned. Once assigned, boot the unit up and allow it to auto-enroll.
Hope this is helpful. Happy New Year.
Reid
Good job going ABM and MDM. However, you need to understand the purchase process to ensure automatic device assignment. Remember, ABM is all about asset chain of custody. This means the entire process of purchase must be within the links of trust (customer business entity > reseller (optional) > Apple).
If the customer bought via the retail channel ("directly from Apple and Apple's online store," or other retail channels like Amazon for example), then the assets cannot be automatically associated to ABM since chain of custody cannot be proven. If the customer is buying direct from Apple, they must reach out to the Business Sales team in the store. The customer will then be assigned an Apple Customer ID. This ID will be associated with the ABM and all future purchases made through the Business sales team will be automatically assigned. Going to apple.com or walking in a making a retail purchase is not eligible for ABM association. If the customer is large enough and they plan on purchasing at least $5000 annually, you can ask the Business Sales team to spin up an eCommerce portal. This is a custom Apple online store just for your customer. You as the consultant can be made a recommender. This will allow the customer to order without going to the store or calling a Business Sales associate.
If the customer wants to buy from someone other than Apple, they must seek a reseller who can participate in the device enrollment program. In this case, your customer provides the reseller with their organization ID (available in ABM) and the reseller provider the customer (or you) with their reseller ID (you must enter it into ABM to complete the link in the chain). This allows the reseller to assign hardware to the customer's ABM.
For the 4 iPads that have already been purchased, you will likely not be able to get Apple to backload them since I will assume these were made through the retail sales channel. However, all hope is not lost. For these three units, you can use Apple Configurator (on iPhone or Mac) and you can side load the units into ABM. Please note, side loading does offer a 30 day opt out period. However, few users will seek this. By side loading the hardware assets, you can manually inject the hardware into ABM, thus allowing automated enrollment from your MDM. Side loading will require you to erase the device. If you have already started using the 4 iPads, make sure data is backed up before starting the side loading process.
Pro tip: If you use Configurator on iPhone, you can select the MDM you want the device assigned to. If you add via Configurator for Mac you will need to log into ABM and reassign from "Configurator" to your MDM server.
Also, depending on your MDM, you may need to wait 15 minutes or longer (24 hours (looking at you Intune)) for the device sync to complete. In your MDM, check your pre-stage to visually confirm the device has been assigned. Once assigned, boot the unit up and allow it to auto-enroll.
Hope this is helpful. Happy New Year.
Reid
Thanks for this reply, Reid! Very detailed and appreciated!
Recently I had a similar situation where a different customer had purchased a dozen iPhones through Verizon, and they (Verizon) were able to give me their reseller ID, which allowed me to enroll (using Configurator 2 on a Mac) the devices to my customer's Apple Business account. So, my assumption is that all I'll need is the proper Reseller ID representing the Apple online store in order to have the same result for this other customer.
I have connected with an Apple Business Specialist through a local Apple Store, and they're tracking this down for me (on behalf of my customer) as well.
Thanks again,
Kevin
Kevin,
Verizon is similar. You need to talk to their business sales team to establish the link to AMB (Verizon's Reseller ID and the customers Org ID). https://www.verizon.com/business/products/security/mobile-device-endpoint-security/mobile-device-management/mdm-device-enrollment-programs/. AT&T and T Mobile also have business programs in place as well.
The leg work in advance is worth the effort. Configurator is fine for a few units, but once you get to customers with 20, 50, 100+ devices coming in at once, you don't want to waste time with Configurator. I recently inherited a customer who tried to go ABM/MDM solo and did everything out of order. Bought the equipment, used an Apple ID to manually set them all up, then subscribed to an MDM, then signed up for ABM, and then decided to build a custom app. Needless to say, I had to go through two locations and about 80 iPads and nuke and pave each one to inject into ABM to achieve supervision for remote update and volume custom app deployment without Apple IDs.
Best to line up your resellers and link everyone to ABM. You can add multiples and you can also assign model classes to different MDMs automatically (Macs to Jamf, iPhones to Intune for example).
Good luck with the project. You are on the right track as the Business Specialist should be able to provide all the linkage for future projects.
Reid
Happy New Year!
I agree that advanced work would be worth it. But in my 2 customers so far I didn't have that option. They had already purchased the hardware. Worst cases were that the devices were under management by a previous IT company, so I had to do backflips to regain manageability. So far, thankfully, the number of devices isn't so large that Configurator is too much of a burden.
I appreciate that you say "Verizon is similar", because I'm hoping that Apple can just give me their own proper Reseller ID so I can get on with it.
Reseller ID for Apple's online store?
