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Setting Up New Device

  • Last Updated December 18, 2025

Topic

This guide provides a step-by-step approach to automating new device setup with NinjaOne.

Environment

NinjaOne Endpoint Management

Description

For many organizations, setting up new devices is a highly standardized (or standardizable) task that lends itself to automation. 

Index

Introduction

Setting up a new end-user laptop or workstation can cost IT anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours. On one end of the spectrum, the IT team must join the device to the domain, install their antivirus, and hand it off to the end user; on the other end, you may have security-related configuration changes, multiple application deployments, and desktop personalization to perform before handing the device off.

Regardless of the number and complexity of steps taken before a new device is ready, this process is the first interaction IT will have with a new employee. Because of this, it is critical to the ongoing relationship between IT and the broader organization that the end-user has a positive onboarding experience.

Fortunately, for many organizations, new device setup is a highly standardized (or standardizable) task which lends itself to automation. Even if some customization is needed, automating the new device onboarding process can offer IT teams significant time savings. NinjaOne recently conducted a survey of our customers which showed that our partners save 1.2 hours per endpoint on onboarding tasks when they automate with NinjaOne.

Whether you’re deploying from a golden image or from a clean Windows installation, NinjaOne can help automate personalized Windows setups at scale.

This guide walks you through some of the most common tasks you may perform when onboarding a device for a new employee and shows you how to automate that process with NinjaRMM.

To Automate New Device Setup

Document Your Endpoint Setup Process

Before you start setting up policies in NinjaOne, you first need to identify which standard tasks, application deployments, and configuration changes you want to apply.

For example, you may want to:

  • Join an Active Directory domain (or deploying a SaaS IAM product)
  • Set up local users or local administrative accounts
  • Uninstall unwanted applications
  • Install productivity, security, management, or line of business applications
  • Change device configurations like power management
  • Personalize the user environment

If your new device setup process is already documented, you’re all set. If not, you’ll need to identify all the changes required on endpoints globally and on a client or role basis and document those steps. Using the activities tab, software inventory, and script repository in NinjaOne may help you identify many tasks that can be standardized and rolled out during onboarding.

Each step then needs to be identified as global or role specific. Global tasks may include installing Office 365 or joining the domain. Role-based tasks may include installing department-specific applications or mapping specific network drives.

You’ll get greater time savings and have a greater impact on user satisfaction by really locking in the onboarding steps that impact every new employee, so time spent on global tasks is well spent.
Functional or role-based automation can be incredibly impactful but is secondary to a solid global onboarding automation.

Write Your Scripts

While NinjaOne provides some software installation and device configuration scripts out of box, you will need to write (or borrow) custom scripts to accomplish most steps in the device onboarding process. The NinjaOne script share provides many great scripts you can borrow.

Important Note: Scripts in the NinjaOne script share library are not supported or endorsed by NinjaOne. Please take caution using scripts from any author you do not know and test scripts thoroughly before using them in production environments.

For each step in new device onboarding, we’ve curated several scripts from our shared library to help you get started:

Joining an Active Directory Domain

Setting up New Users

Uninstall Applications

Install Applications

NinjaOne provides a built-in software deployment script for MSI and EXE applications.

Or script share includes dozens of custom software installation scripts.

Manage Device Configurations

Personalize the User Environment

Create a Policy

From an ease-of-management perspective, we recommend separating your new device setup policies from your day-to-day management policies.

For more information, refer to Policy Management: Resource Catalog.

Test and Deploy

Now that your policies are created it’s time to test your automated setup policy and deploy.
You’re going to want to test the policy and manually verify that all tasks were performed, applications deployed, and configurations changed with the expected results before deploying to production.
To automate deployment of these policies, you can create a new organization and assign policies based on role. Once you’ve validated that the automation works on your golden image or devices in your organization, you can deploy to production.

 

FAQ

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