Changing System Name for DEP Enrolled iPad in Systems Manager

[dbelliss]

I see that I can change the "Name" for an iPad in system manager using the devices tab, however I would like to also change the "System Name". Is this possible in Systems Manager for a supervised device?

[BlakeRichardson]

@dbelliss  changing the device name in systems manager will only change the name within Meraki. Apple don't allow MDMs to change the devices hostname, this still needs to be manually done on the device.

[vassallon · Accepted solution]

@BlakeRichardson Not true. You can push out names to iPads through the Dashboard. 

There are two restrictions in settings which control this and in iOS 13 there was supposed to be a way to keep the name up to date without having to have Allow modification of device name enabled.

Allow modification of device name

Keep device name up-to-date with Dashboard

https://support.apple.com/guide/mdm/welcome/web

[dbelliss]

Got it, thank you!

[vassallon]

@dbelliss Here is where you setup the forced name changes in settings:

[BlakeRichardson]

I stand corrected, nice one @vassallon very handy to know. 

[vassallon]

@BlakeRichardson After allowing students to name their iPads for one year it was decided they couldn't handle it so we now push out names to all student iPads.

[Noah_Salzman]

Any creative names they came up with that you can share here? 🙂

[vassallon]

The creative ones weren't the issue, it was the ones that weren't school appropriate.

Especially when they started airdropping with those names. 

[beks88]

But according to this info, I would need to allow modification, set the name through dashboard and disallow modification again.

Or do you guys have a workflow to share? We would like to set device names to users username automatically 🙂 and they shouldn't be able to modify it.

[vassallon]

@beks88 

With iOS 13, Apple has created a way to update the name with the Allow modification of device name restriction in place.

I passed along this information to @Noah_Salzman but as far as I know it has not been implemented yet. Hopefully soon.....

So yes, the workflow we have to use for now, is to allow modification, set the name through dashboard, get the iPad to check into Meraki, update the name and disallow modification again.

[Noah_Salzman]

Correct, not implemented. I've added it to the list, but I consider it low-priority at this time.