Microsoft Intune Initial Setup for macOS Device Management

Platform SSO is the modern bridge between a Mac and Microsoft Entra ID: the user signs in once and the Mac holds an Entra credential that keeps apps and browsers signed in without password prompts. The design decision this engagement makes with you is the authentication method. Secure Enclave key: the Mac stores a hardware-bound cryptographic credential — phishing-resistant, passwordless sign-in to Entra resources, our default recommendation where the fleet supports it. Password synchronization: the local macOS password is kept in sync with the Entra password — simpler mental model, familiar sign-in, but it remains a password. The choice, and how local accounts are handled, is documented in the design record, and the pilot validates the selected experience end to end.

Three mistakes cause most Mac-estate emergencies. First, creating the Apple trust connections under a consultant's personal Apple ID: renewal then depends on a person who may be gone — here every certificate and token is created under client-controlled organizational accounts with a renewal calendar. Second, ignoring FileVault escrow: users enable encryption themselves, no recovery key lands in Intune, and the data on a departed employee's Mac is unrecoverable — the pilot proves enforcement with escrowed keys and the rollout plan covers already-encrypted Macs. Third, treating a user-enrolled Mac as managed: browser or Company Portal enrollment produces removable, unsupervised management — only Automated Device Enrollment through Apple Business Manager delivers the supervised state this design is built on.

It fits US commercial organizations of roughly 100–500 seats on the Microsoft cloud with corporate-owned Macs alongside a Windows fleet — the executive, creative, and developer Macs most SMBs actually have. It is not the right shape for personally owned Macs (a different enrollment and privacy design), shared-lab or classroom estates, or a migration off Jamf or another Mac MDM — each of those is available as separately scoped work on the same foundation.

The service configures the Apple MDM push certificate, the Apple Business Manager Automated Device Enrollment connection and one supervised macOS enrollment profile, the Apps and Books token, Platform SSO with Microsoft Entra ID per the approved design, one compliance baseline, one settings-catalog configuration baseline, FileVault enforcement with recovery-key escrow, a managed software-update policy, managed application deployment including Defender for Endpoint onboarding for the pilot where licensed plus up to three additional applications, pilot validation on up to five Macs, documentation including the renewal calendar, and an administrator handoff.

Microsoft Intune Initial Setup for Windows Device Management provides the core foundation every add-on builds on. This service is the macOS add-on; the mobile add-ons are Microsoft Intune Initial Setup for iPhone & iPad Management and Microsoft Intune Initial Setup for Android Device Management; and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Deployment for Intune-Managed Devices layers endpoint detection and response across the managed fleet. Windows Autopilot zero-touch deployment is a further separate engagement on the same foundation. Together they cover a complete, defended multi-platform estate.

The fee is fixed per project — see the price on this page. It covers one Intune tenant, one standard enrollment scenario, up to five pilot Macs, the required managed-app deployment including pilot Defender for Endpoint onboarding where licensed, and up to three additional Apps and Books applications. Licensing, hardware, full-fleet deployment, additional scenarios, and MDM migration are not included, and no out-of-scope work is performed without your written approval.

Two weeks — ten business days of elapsed calendar time paced by Apple Business Manager processing and client dependencies rather than ten days of continuous engineering. The schedule assumes the Intune foundation and Apple Business Manager organization are ready, the Apple accounts and tokens are available, pilot Macs can be erased and assigned, and decisions and testing arrive on time. Client-side delays move the completion date rather than the scope.

Through a managed update policy using the mechanism Intune currently supports for your Macs' OS versions — on current macOS releases that is the declarative device management (DDM) approach, which enforces a target version by a deadline with a transparent countdown for the user, and which Apple is standardizing on as it retires the legacy MDM update commands. The design records which mechanism applies to which devices, and the pilot validates the enforcement behavior your users will actually see.

Yes. Apple Business Manager is required for the included Automated Device Enrollment design. You maintain the verified organization, assign eligible Macs to the Intune MDM server, hold the required Apple roles and accounts, and accept Apple's agreements when they update. Macs purchased at retail rather than through business channels may need Apple or reseller processing before they can be added — a client-side task we identify in the readiness assessment.

No. The included design is for corporate-owned, supervised Macs enrolled through Apple Business Manager. Managing personally owned Macs is a different model with a different privacy posture and different enrollment mechanics, and it is separately scoped — as is app protection without device enrollment.

Not inside this engagement — and it matters to be precise about why. Moving Macs between MDMs is not a settings export: supervised state, FileVault keys, and Apps and Books licenses each have their own migration behavior, and devices generally re-enroll to change management. This engagement establishes the Intune macOS foundation a migration would land on; the migration itself — coexistence design, token and license transfer, staged re-enrollment — is quoted separately once we can see your current estate.

The pilot Macs get the Defender for Endpoint app deployed and onboarded through Intune where you hold the licensing — so by the end of the pilot, your security tooling sees the Macs it will see in production. Tenant-wide Defender configuration, policy tuning, and security-operations integration remain the separate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Deployment for Intune-Managed Devices engagement, which this pilot onboarding slots into cleanly.

You do, by default — using the delivered renewal calendar that names each trust connection, its expiration date, its owning account, and the exact renewal steps. All three renew on roughly annual cycles, and renewing on time with the same accounts is what keeps the fleet managed. If you would rather not carry that clock, IT Partner can quote an annual renewal-management arrangement separately.

You receive the validated configuration, pilot results, as-built document, enrollment and troubleshooting runbooks, the renewal calendar, and an administrator handoff. Natural next steps, each separately scoped: the production rollout across the Mac fleet, fleet-wide Defender for Endpoint deployment, additional scenarios such as shared Macs, and the multi-platform bundle completing Windows, iPhone/iPad, Android, and macOS under one management design.