Supervision

Supervision provides additional control over the configuration and restrictions of a computer or device that is owned by your organization. For example, you can control operating system features (e.g., AirDrop) and manage applications (e.g., set up Single App Mode). With Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, supervision can be enabled as part of the enrollment process with Jamf Now.

For iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS devices, supervision can be enabled manually using Apple Configurator 2. A computer with macOS 11 or later is considered supervised when a user performs enrollment in Jamf Now. For more information, see Supervision of Apple devices in Apple's Deployment Reference for iPhone and iPad.

Certain mobile device management (MDM) features (e.g., setting restrictions or sending management commands) are available only for supervised computers and devices. For more information, see the following topics in Apple's Mobile Device Management Settings:

Supervision and Jamf Now Features

Many Jamf Now features can only be applied to supervised devices.

Some Jamf Now features require both supervision and Automated Device Enrollment. These include:

Non-removable Management Profiles
Activation Lock Bypass
Pushing OS Updates


	Unsupervised	Supervised
Configure Wi-Fi	X	X
Configure email	X	X
Deploy apps	X	X
Require passcode	X	X
Disable installing or deleting apps		X
Disable "wipe this device"		X
iTunes explicit content filter		X
Disable iTunes, Safari, iMessage		X
Manage App Usage		X
Restrictions (for iPad and iPhone)		X
Lost Mode		X
Wallpapers		X
Activation Lock Bypass		X

Supervising an iPad, iPhone, or Apple TV

Note: Devices will be wiped when bringing them under supervision.

There are two ways to supervise an iPad, iPhone, or Apple TV:

You can enroll devices that are tied to your Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager account with Automated Device Enrollment. This is helpful as it streamlines the onboarding process, and allows you to use features that require this enrollment method.
For existing devices that are not tied to your Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager account, use Apple Configurator to manually supervise devices. For more information, see Supervising Mobile Devices with Apple Configurator 2.5 or Later.
Note:
For devices that do not qualify for Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager, use the following link to add the devices to your Apple account using Apple Configurator Using Apple Configurator 2.5 or Later to Prepare Mobile Devices for Automated Device Enrollment.

Supervising a Mac

There are two ways to supervise a Mac:

Computers with macOS 10.15 or later can be supervised with Automated Device Enrollment.
Computers with macOS 11 or later are automatically supervised when enrolled with Open Enrollment, making it easier to manage an already deployed Mac.

Identifying a Supervised Device

Open the Settings app on the device.
Tap General.
Tap About.

A supervised device displays its supervision status.