Apple Business

Apple Business, formerly Apple Business Manager, is Apple's record of every device your organization has bought. Connecting it to AssetCenter means your Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs arrive with their serial number, order number, purchase date and AppleCare coverage already filled in, rather than being typed in from an invoice.

Apple Business is a purchase record rather than a management service. It knows what you own and how you bought it; it does not know who is signed in on a device or when that device last checked in. The Device Management page also connects Mosyle Business and Jamf Pro, which do report those things, and one device can be linked to both its purchase record and its management service.

Only an AssetCenter account administrator can manage the connection. AssetCenter only reads from Apple Business and never changes anything there.

Device Management is currently in early access and is enabled per organization. If you do not see it under Settings, contact us to have it turned on.

Create an API account in Apple Business#

Apple issues the credentials, so this part happens on Apple's site. You need the Organization Administrator role in Apple Business.

1. Sign in to Apple Business as an Organization Administrator.
2. Choose Settings, then Integrations, then API.
3. Press Add API Account and give it a name, such as AssetCenter.
4. Set Role Access to Device Enrollment Manager. That is the role Apple gives permission to read your devices and device management services, and it is the narrowest one that works. Press Next.
5. Press Generate & Download to download the private key. It is a .pem file, and Apple generates it only once, so keep it somewhere safe.
6. Press Edit on the account you just created, and copy the Client ID and the Key ID.

The Client ID and Key ID are only shown behind that Edit button, not on the screen that creates the account, so it is easy to miss them the first time through.

Apple lets you edit what each role can do. If your organization has changed the Device Enrollment Manager role, make sure it kept permission to view device management services, or Apple will refuse to share your devices and the connection will fail.

Connect AssetCenter#

1. Open Settings from the main menu, then Device Management.
2. Select the Apple Business tab.
3. Paste in the Client ID and the Key ID.
4. Leave Team ID blank. Apple issues a single identifier that serves as both, and only organizations Apple gave a separate one need to fill this in.
5. Open the .pem file in a text editor and paste its entire contents, including the -----BEGIN and -----END lines, into the Private key box.
6. Decide whether to Look up AppleCare coverage, described below.
7. Press Connect Apple Business.

AssetCenter checks the credentials with Apple before saving them. If Apple rejects them, the error appears on the form: confirm you copied the Client ID and Key ID from the same API account as the key you downloaded, and that you pasted the whole .pem file.

Once connected, the first import starts in the background. Large organizations take a few minutes.

AppleCare coverage#

Look up AppleCare coverage fills in each device's warranty end date and agreement number. Apple requires a separate request for every device, so syncing takes noticeably longer with it on. You can change your mind at any time using the same checkbox on the connected page.

What comes across#

For every device your organization owns, AssetCenter records:

• Serial number, model and model identifier.
• Order number, order date, and who you bought it from.
• The date the device was added to your organization.
• Hardware identifiers where Apple has them, such as IMEI, EID and network addresses.
• AppleCare end date and agreement number, if you turned that on.

Apple does not share what you paid, so purchase prices are still yours to enter.

Matching devices to assets#

Importing never creates assets on its own. Devices arrive in the list at the bottom of the Device Management page and wait for you.

A device whose serial number matches an asset you already have is linked automatically. Everything else stays unlinked, and the list shows a badge counting how many are waiting. Use the search box and the Unlinked only switch to work through them.

For each unlinked device you have two choices:

• Import creates a new asset from the device. Choose the category it belongs in, and AssetCenter fills in the manufacturer, model and serial number.
• Link attaches the device to an asset you already have. Search for the asset by tag, model or serial.

Unlink does the opposite. The asset is kept exactly as it is and simply stops being updated from Apple Business.

An asset holds one record per source, so the same Mac can carry both its Apple Business record and its Mosyle or Jamf record at once.

Acquisition and warranty details#

When a device is linked to an asset, AssetCenter fills in what the asset is missing:

• An asset with no acquisition on record gets one from the Apple order, showing the order number and purchase date.
• An asset with no warranty on record gets one from AppleCare, if you turned that lookup on. Your existing expiring-warranty reminders then apply to it like any other.

Both only ever fill in a gap. If someone has already recorded an acquisition or a warranty, by hand or through a bulk import, that record is left alone. Apple never overwrites what a person entered.

Keeping it up to date#

AssetCenter syncs connected device sources once a day. Press Sync now at any time to run one immediately.

The tab shows the current state at a glance, and the page reports when the last sync finished and whether it succeeded. If Apple stops accepting the credentials, for example because the key was revoked in Apple Business, the connection is flagged and an error explains why. Disconnect, create a fresh API account and connect again to resume.

A device that disappears from Apple Business, because it was released from your organization, is kept on record and marked unavailable rather than deleted, so you can see that an asset's purchase record has gone away.

Disconnect#

Press Disconnect and confirm to stop syncing. Assets that were imported or linked are kept, along with their acquisition and warranty history. Only the connection to Apple is removed.