Home Healthcare Organization: Nurse iPad Fleet Moved From IBM MaaS360 to Jamf Pro

Organization: A Home Healthcare Organization

In 2020, before starting Netcosa, Joe Pennel moved a home healthcare organization’s iPad fleet from IBM MaaS360 to Jamf Pro. This is the kind of device management work that sits inside Netcosa’s managed IT services, and Joe is straightforward about how much manual cleanup it took.

About 125 iPads were in nurses’ hands, and Joe brought all of them under one MDM.

Challenge: IBM MaaS360 and a Fleet in Nurses’ Hands

The organization had been running its iPads on IBM MaaS360, and the devices were out in the field with nurses visiting patients at home.

Moving to a different platform was not a switch to flip. Joe knew exactly what each iPad needed. Devices already in Apple Business Manager could be assigned to Jamf and enroll on their own. The ones that weren’t had to be wiped and added by hand before they could enroll. For devices carrying patient information outside the office, the new setup also had to keep that information protected.

Not sure how your organization’s iPads are enrolled and managed? Start with an IT assessment. Schedule an assessment or call (901) 306-7575.

Response: Apple Business Manager, Jamf Pro, and Apple Configurator 2

Joe standardized the fleet on Jamf Pro, with Apple Business Manager (now called Apple Business) as the way devices got enrolled. The order of operations mattered:

1. Let registered devices enroll themselves. An iPad assigned to the organization in Apple Business Manager enrolls in Jamf Pro during setup, then pulls its configuration down without anyone touching it.
2. Check the first five by hand. Joe personally handled the first five iPads to confirm the configuration before rolling it out to the rest of the fleet. Once those devices tied in and pulled their settings, the remaining iPads followed. If a device had problems, a full factory reset and fresh setup was the fix.
3. Use Apple Configurator 2 for anything not registered. When an iPad wasn’t already in Business Manager, Joe wiped it and used Apple Configurator 2 to add it, so it could enroll in Jamf like the rest of the fleet.
4. Lock down every device. Through Jamf, every iPad required a passcode, was limited to approved apps, and could be remotely locked or wiped if it was lost or stolen.

Joe on buying devices the right way:

“I would buy all my iPads already configured… it had to be in business manager for me to add it to the MDM.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

And on how often he needed Apple Configurator 2:

“I had to do a lot of that initially as I migrated them over because they were doing the IBM MDM.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

Outcome: A Centrally Managed Fleet, After Real Manual Work

• Centrally managed: about 125 iPads enrolled and managed through Apple Business Manager and Jamf Pro
• Off MaaS360: the full fleet was migrated away from the previous platform
• Protected in the field: passcodes required, apps restricted, and remote lock and wipe available for lost devices
• Significant manual effort: the move took a lot of work by hand early on with Apple Configurator 2

That last result is the part to plan for. The simplest fix is upstream: buy iPads through Apple or an authorized reseller tied to your Apple Business account, so they’re registered before they arrive and enroll on their own. A device that isn’t registered has to be wiped and added by hand, and Joe did a lot of that during the move.

We don’t have time or cost numbers from before and after this project, so we aren’t printing any. What the account does support is a fleet that ended up centrally managed and locked down, with the hard parts named instead of smoothed over. That is what straight talk about managed IT services looks like.

Running iPads that live in your staff’s hands? Talk to Netcosa about your iPad fleet.

Related: Managed IT Services | Jamf | HIPAA Compliance | Healthcare