Hi everyone, it’s been a long while. I really need to get into the habit of writing more.
I’ve been working on a few projects at work but I want to talk about mobile device management (MDM). I’ve been working on rolling out MDM to devices across all our customers. It is going pretty smoothly, and customers are very receptive to it. MDM makes a ton of work very easy. When it came to workstation setups for remote work, someone would have to spend quite a while on the phone with someone, following a checklist. Today the checklist is much shorter, just a few steps after turning on the computer and MDM takes care of the rest.
Microsoft’s Windows AutoPilot Program’ and Apple’s Automated Device Enrollment are very important now that many people are either working remotely full-time or part-time. No more worrying about whether someone is not compliant with company IT policy – IT policy is now the default, even if you ship straight from manufacturer to employee.
It’s been a real trip writing scripts and gathering info for deploying different kinds of apps. A lot of it is tedious but it is so very rewarding. Computer setup time has gone down from 45-60 minutes to 15-20, and those 15-20 minutes I don’t even hear about because Microsoft Intune and Apple’s MDM implementation are just so good.
Most people don’t even notice that their applications are installing while they work, it’s great! I’ve also been able to implement a self-service portal for popular (approved) apps, so if someone needs something that isn’t part of the standard deployment, they can get it without having to call our support team.
I have been waiting so long to work on something like this, and I finally got to do so in the last year. This is the kind of project where everyone can see the results, and is a great example of work smarter, not harder.
Sounds pretty sweet, right? If this sounds like something you need, tell your IT team! If you don’t have an IT team, give me a shout!
As always, thanks for reading.
– AJ
P.S. Please do not join your personally owned devices to any mobile device management. Even if asked. Giving your company access to control your personal private data just isn’t a good idea. Unless it’s a limited BYOD user-enrollment style of MDM, then it’s okay, but that discussion is for another time.