Topic
This guide provides a step-by-step approach to automating the setup of new devices with NinjaOne.
Environment
NinjaOne Endpoint Management
Description
Setting up a new end-user laptop or workstation can take an IT department anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. At 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; at the other end, you may need to perform security-related configuration changes, deploy multiple applications, and personalize the desktop before handing the device off.
Fortunately, for many organizations, new device setup is a highly standardized task that 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 surveyed our customers, and the results showed that our partners save 1.2 hours per endpoint on onboarding tasks by automating 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.
Common Tasks
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 NinjaOne. Click a section below for more information about the topic listed.
- Automate New Device Setup
- Document Your Endpoint Setup Process
- Create Your Scripts
- Create a Policy
- Test and Deploy
Automate New Device Setup
The sections below outline each step involved in automating your device setups. Review each section to learn the full process.
Document Your Endpoint Setup Process
Before you start setting up policies in NinjaOne, 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 deploy 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 required changes across endpoints, globally and by client or role, and document those steps. Using the activities tab, software inventory, and template library 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 Microsoft Office 365 or joining the domain. Role-based tasks may include installing department-specific applications or mapping specific network drives.
You’ll achieve greater time savings and have a greater impact on user satisfaction by locking in the onboarding steps that affect every new employee, so time spent on global tasks is well spent. Functional or role-based automation can be incredibly impactful, but it is secondary to a solid global onboarding automation.
Create Your Scripts
While NinjaOne provides some software installation and device configuration scripts out of the box, you will need custom scripts to accomplish some steps in the device onboarding process. The NinjaOne Automation Template Library provides many great template scripts you can use as a starting point. The template library can be accessed at Administration → Library → Automation → Template Library. For more information about using the NinjaOne Automation library, refer to NinjaOne Endpoint Management: Getting Started with Automation Scripting.
For each step in new device onboarding, we’ve curated a list of scripts from the Template Library to help you get started. You can access each script referenced below directly from NinjaOne by navigating to Administration → Library → Automation → Template Library.
Joining an Active Directory Domain
- Active Directory - Join Computer to a Domain
Setting up New Users
- Create New Local User
- Create New User - Linux
- Create New User - macOS
- Create Secure Token for Account
Uninstall Unwanted Applications
- Uninstall a Windows Application
- Uninstall Application macOS
Install Applications
NinjaOne provides a built-in software deployment script for MSI and EXE applications.
Manage Device Configurations
- Change Power and Sleep Settings
- Change Power and Sleep Settings macOS
- Deploy Wi-Fi Profile
- Rename Computer
- Rename Computer Linux
- Rename Computer macOS
- Enable or Disable Fast Startup
Personalize the User Environment
- Create Desktop Shortcut - EXE
- Create Desktop Shortcut - RDP
- Create Desktop Shortcut - URL
- Enable or Disable Show File Extensions
- Enable or Disable Show File Extensions - macOS
- Set Default Browser
- Set Desktop Wallpaper
- Set Computer Branding - Windows
For a more detailed list of automated scripts you can access, refer to NinjaOne Endpoint Management: Native Automation Scripts.
Community Scripts
You can also access a variety of custom scripts submitted by other NinjaOne users in our Policy Management: Resource Catalog.
Test and Deploy
Now that your policies are created, it’s time to test your automated setup policy and deploy. We recommend testing your policy and manually verifying that all tasks were performed, applications were deployed, and configurations were changed with the expected results before deploying to production. To automate the deployment of these policies, you can create a new organization and assign policies based on role. After you’ve validated that the automation works on your golden image or devices in your organization, you can deploy to production.