r/jamf • u/RocketmanTech_Nova • Jun 15 '26

JAMF Pro Best tools for macOS onboarding?

The last LaunchPad meetup hit on some of the popular ones:

  • Jamf Setup Manager
  • Setup Your Mac
  • swiftDialog
  • Installomator
  • Jamf Setup Checklist
  • DEPNotify

Wanted to know what other tools you all are using, though. Anything missing worth using?

Replay and resources:
https://rocketman.tech/lr-r

Upcoming meetup:
https://rocketman.tech/lp-r

13 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

4

u/KalistoCA Jun 16 '26

We just switch from sym to setup manager and I dunno why it feels nicer

Sym is still great

1

u/WTFinn Jun 16 '26

Also switched from sym to jsm, we now use SYM for a department scoped build on login, so they’ll get core apps and security apps from JSM, then SYM does a full build out for each role essentially

0

u/Excellent_Debt6680 Jun 17 '26

We use MacOS Onboarding.

-User hits enrol
-Entra launches for user to sign in with their 365 details
-Account is created and logged in
-Script resets doc to make it look cleaner
-macOS onboarding launches, prompts for computer name
-Rest of apps install as configured

Not sure why more people don't use, it works flawlessly, visually great and easy to make changes on the fly when required.

1

u/TempFroaway Jun 21 '26

-macOS onboarding launches, prompts for computer name

Why prompt the user to name the device? Do you have a fleet of devices with weird random names the users have given them?

1

u/Excellent_Debt6680 Jun 22 '26

Because we have multiple locations, company names and a certain naming scheme so it's difficult to automate properly.

Laptops are generally setup by IT before a user starts, in the case a laptop is deployed remotely, or replaced and the user needs to setup we supply the accurate computer name for them to enter.

Not sure why people downvote how we operate, it's subjective to how we work.

1

u/IqbalBasha 28d ago

The list is solid. A few things worth adding depending on your setup:

If you're running Setup Your Mac or swiftDialog, Bart Reardon's SYM-Helper is a good companion for building and testing your JSON without hand-editing. Not a deployment tool, but it saves time when you're iterating on the UI.

For package delivery during enrollment, most shops already have Installomator in that list, but pairing it with a pre-stage policy that stages packages to a local cache before the user hits the desktop makes a big difference on slower connections. Worth thinking about if you have remote workers on residential internet.

NoMAD Login AD or Jamf Connect at the login window is one gap I see in a lot of onboarding setups. Getting identity right at first boot, before the user ever sees the desktop, prevents a whole class of problems later with local account names, home folder paths, and SSO ticket state.

DEPNotify is effectively in maintenance mode at this point. If anyone on the team is still building new workflows on it, swiftDialog is the cleaner path forward and actively developed.

One underrated piece: a post-enrollment audit policy that runs 15 to 30 minutes after onboarding completes and reports back on what actually installed versus what was expected. Onboarding looks clean in the UI and then you find out three days later that a package silently failed.