Activation Lock Enhancement for Apple School Manager Simplifies End-of-Year Workflows

As summer approaches and teachers start to think about the end of another successful academic year, IT teams know that a big part of their job is just about to start: Device collection and refresh. No matter the size of your deployment, a well-planned end-of-year workflow helps ensure your technology is protected, organized, and ready for back-to-school, letting you sleep as easily as your students all vacation long. 

To help make this process more efficient, IT administrators can now fully disable Activation Lock directly from the Apple School Manager portal — no need to contact Apple Support or rely on manual user intervention.

What is Activation Lock?

Activation Lock is a powerful security feature built in to all Apple devices that secures a device reported as missing or stolen by tying it to the user’s Apple Account, protecting personal data and preventing unauthorized use. When Activation lock is enabled, the user’s Apple Account password is required to deactivate Find My, erase the device, or reactivate the device after erasure. Activation Lock availability is managed in MDM for supervised devices.

Why it matters

IT admins can encounter an Activation Lock for many reasons: A lost device later recovered, one returned by a departing teacher who forgets to sign out, and more. In some cases schools have chosen to limit the use of Activation Lock to minimize these situations. With this new enhancement, IT teams can explore widespread use of Activation Lock across their Apple fleet, providing an important layer of security and peace of mind that your school’s investment - and data - is protected for the long term.

Here’s how it works:

• In Apple School Manager, sign in with a user who has Device Management privileges.
• Select Devices in the sidebar, search for a device in the search field, then select the device from the list. See How to search.
• Under Details, you will be able to see if Activation Lock is on.
• If the device was added to Apple School Manager prior to Activation Lock being enabled, you will be able to disable Activation Lock remotely, even if the primary user hasn’t signed out of iCloud.

As part of a comprehensive end-of-year plan that incorporates best practices from Apple’s Deployment Guide for Education, Activation Lock management in Apple School Manager gives you more flexibility and control—so you can wrap up the school year with confidence and start the next one ready to go.