What is Apple Business Manager?

Apple Business Manager (ABM) is a web portal managing the deployment, content and accounts of organizational devices. ABM combines the capabilities of Apple’s earlier programs, the Device Enrollment Program (DEP) and the Volume Purchase Program (VPP). It allows you to deploy and manage certain aspects of iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV and macOS devices from a single place. 

With Apple Business Manager, you can directly enroll the devices purchased from Apple or an authorized reseller with Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) solution like Hexnode. This eliminates the tedious process of individual device preparation before assigning them to users. You can customize the initial setup process at the user end by including only the necessary steps. This helps in saving time and effort for the user who is setting up the device for the first time. 

ABM enables organizations to purchase and deploy content in bulk. IT admins can efficiently distribute apps and books directly to managed devices or authorized users. It can help you keep track of the content and the endpoints they are assigned to. Furthermore, it also gives you the right to revoke apps from endpoints that are no longer used and reassign them to the required users within the organization. 

Apple Business Manager allows companies to establish and manage employee accounts that interface with current infrastructure and provide them access to Apple applications and services. You can automate the process by connecting ABM with Microsoft Azure Active Directory. Once it’s done, managed Apple IDs have created automatically when the employee signs in with their AD credentials for the first time.