Jon Brown Mentor and Coach

A Jamf policy only does what its scope tells it to do. That’s easy to forget because the policy gets all the attention. It’s where we upload packages, attach scripts, configure triggers, and watch logs after deployment. By the time the policy runs, though, one of the most important decisions has already been made. The Smart Group decided whether the Mac belonged there in the fi...

Software updates look simple until you’re the person explaining why half the fleet is still pending. That’s one of the reasons I’ve started leaning on Jamf Blueprints and Declarative Device Management (DDM). Instead of hiding software update settings across profiles, commands, and legacy workflows, Blueprints provide a single place to understand what is being deployed, who recei...

Over the last few months, more people have been asking me the same kind of question: I built a thing. How do I ship it? Sometimes it is a small Mac utility. Sometimes it is a script that grew into an app. Sometimes it is a project that started as an AI-assisted experiment and turned into something other people might actually download. That is the point where the conversation h...

A package that installs successfully on your test Mac isn’t automatically ready for deployment through Jamf Pro. That’s an easy trap to fall into because Jamf makes software deployment look deceptively simple. Upload the package, create a policy, scope it to a Smart Group, and you’re done. Except you’re usually not. The package is only one part of the deployment. Before it rea...

One of the best improvements in modern automation is the built-in secret manager. You can find it in many solutions from GitHub, Snowflake, and many many more. Whether you’re using GitHub Actions, Jamf Pro, or another automation platform, you no longer need to hard-code passwords, API keys, or client secrets directly into scripts. That’s a huge improvement over the way many of ...