Virtisphere
Getting started with device management
Company laptops, phones and tablets kept secure, recoverable and accounted for, using tools that are free or already paid for. This page covers which tool suits which devices, what to gather first, and the order that avoids the mistakes that are hard to undo.
Which tool for which devices
| Your devices | Use | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Mac, iPhone, iPad | Apple Business, which includes device management | Free |
| Windows, with Microsoft 365 Business Premium | Microsoft Intune, which comes with that plan | Already paid for |
| Windows, without Business Premium, up to 25 devices | ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus, free edition, in the cloud | Free |
| Windows, without Business Premium, more than 25 devices | Microsoft Intune on its own, or Business Premium | From $8 per user per month |
If you already pay for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Intune can manage your Macs and iPhones as well as your Windows PCs. That means one place to look instead of two, at the cost of connecting Apple Business to Intune. We recommend one or the other once we know your devices.
What to gather first
- Your legal business name and a business ID, either a D-U-N-S number or an EIN. Apple needs these to verify you, and a D-U-N-S number can take days to issue.
- Access to your domain’s DNS, to prove you own your domain.
- A list of every company device: its type, its serial number, and who holds it. A spreadsheet is fine to start with.
- Which Microsoft 365 plan you have, if any. It decides the tool for Windows.
- Where your Apple devices were bought. Devices bought from Apple or an authorized reseller can be set up with no hands-on work; others need a few extra steps.
- Which edition of Windows each PC runs. See the warning below.
- Anyone signed in to a company Mac, iPhone or iPad with a personal Apple Account. Those are the devices that can end up locked to that person when they leave.
Windows Home editions do not support Microsoft Entra join, which is how a PC becomes a company-managed device. Company PCs should run any edition except Home: Pro, Enterprise or Education. A Home PC can be upgraded to Pro, and it is worth doing before setup rather than after.
The order to set things up in
- Audit. Count the devices, who holds each one, and which are already managed. Nothing can be planned without the count.
- Create the accounts in your company’s name: Apple Business, and Microsoft 365 or ManageEngine for Windows. They must belong to the business, not to whoever sets them up, and not to us.
- Give Virtisphere access, with named accounts and the narrowest role that works. See Give Virtisphere access.
- Build the baseline settings: passcodes, disk encryption, updates and Wi-Fi.
- Enroll one device of each kind as a pilot, and check that every setting arrived.
- Enroll the rest, one group at a time, recording who holds each device as it goes.
What it costs
The tools here are free, or included in a plan you may already have. Apple Business and the free edition of ManageEngine cost nothing, and Intune comes with Microsoft 365 Business Premium or costs $8 per user per month on its own. What costs time is keeping it all accurate as people join, leave and break things, which is the part we take on if you would like us to.