Bringing Mac Laptops Under the Same Management as Windows

The challenge

Central device management was already in place for the Windows fleet, and staff had a consistent experience because of it. Then Macs arrived and sat outside that system entirely — no central visibility, no shared policy baseline, and a manual process every time someone needed access to shared resources. A small team was effectively administering two environments while resourced for one.

Where we came in

The existing setup was sound, so the work was to extend it rather than replace it. We started by mapping the roughly twenty Windows policies already in place to their macOS equivalents, which made the Mac rollout an extension of a known-good configuration instead of a second standard to maintain.

What we did

• Configured the Apple push notification certificate that makes central Apple device management possible at all
• Built separate enrolment profiles and restrictions for organisation-owned and staff-owned devices
• Established device grouping in the directory so policies target the right machines automatically
• Developed and packaged a cross-platform local administrator script covering both macOS and Windows
• Extended the existing Windows policy set to macOS so both platforms sit on one baseline

Where it landed

• Windows and Apple devices are managed from a single console under one policy standard
• New devices of either kind enrol through a defined workflow rather than manual setup
• Delivered across three phases and closed out complete