Using Baseline with Addigy

Baseline is a custom onboarding app built as an MDM-agnostic zero-touch or light-touch solution for macOS. It combines several widely used open-source macOS utilities into a simple, flexible setup you can deploy with a .pkg installer and a custom profile — speeding up the gap between a new device's first touch and when it's actually ready for production use.

Quick software deployments and a polished end-user experience both matter for onboarding: they shorten that gap and help confirm the deployment's value to the end user as their device is being set up.

A huge Addigy thanks to the folks at Second Son Consulting, Inc. for building and documenting this tool for the MacAdmins community. Find them, and a community of users, in the #baseline channel of the MacAdmins Slack community.

Note: The Baseline team is constantly adding new utilities and features. Follow along on their releases page.

If you run into issues deploying Baseline to your devices, reach out in the #baseline Slack channel of the MacAdmins community.

Baseline Resources

• Baseline Releases Page
• Baseline Wiki Page
• Baseline Addigy Wiki
• Installomator Labels

Deploying Baseline

Deploying Baseline with Addigy is straightforward using a Custom Profile and Smart Software.

Prerequisites

• macOS 12+
• iMazing Profile Editor
• Baseline pkg

Manual Enrollment Workflow

Create your Smart Software that installs Baseline on the device:

• Recommended: set the install priority to 1.91 so it pushes before the rest of the policy items.
• Get and upload the Baseline PKG from the releases page — make sure it's not the NoDaemon version.
• Include any other PKGs or files you want installed as part of the onboarding experience.

Create and upload your Baseline mobileconfig file using iMazing Profile Editor:

• Payload name: Baseline by Second Son Consulting
• Recommended: set the install priority to 1.9 so it pushes before the rest of the policy items and the Baseline pkg.
• Apply both to the policy and manually enroll a new device.

Pre-Stage Enrollment Workflow

Create your Smart Software that installs Baseline on the device:

• Recommended: set the install priority to 0.2 so it pushes during Automated Device Enrollment.
• Get and upload the Baseline PKG from the releases page — make sure it's not the NoDaemon version.
• Include any other PKGs or files you want installed as part of the onboarding experience.

Create and upload your Baseline mobileconfig file using iMazing Profile Editor:

• Payload name: Baseline by Second Son Consulting
• Recommended: set the install priority to 0.1 so it pushes during Automated Device Enrollment and before the Baseline pkg.
• Apply both to the policy and enroll a new device via Automated Device Enrollment.

For more workflow scenarios, see the Addigy Baseline wiki page (thanks to Chris Bobbitt for writing it up).

Example Manual Deployment

This example creates a Baseline deployment that will:

• Set all custom icons to reference an image from a URL
• Automatically grab the most recent Baseline PKG from their releases page (no need to upload your own)
• Install Google Chrome using Baseline's built-in Installomator function
• Install Zoom from a pkg file uploaded to the Smart Software
• Run a script that waits for the Addigy policy to finish deploying before exiting Baseline

Note: This example references an Install script, a Condition script, and a "Wait for Addigy Policy.sh" script as attached files. To get the Zoom installer, visit Zoom's download center.

Step 1: Smart Software Creation

• Create a Smart Software in Addigy and add the Install and Condition script templates to their respective fields.
• Add the Download folder path to the variable on line 4.
• Upload the Zoom installer and the Wait for Addigy Policy.sh file to the file upload section.
• Set the Priority Order to 1.91.

Note: The Installation Script automatically collects the most recent Baseline PKG from the releases page, so there's no need to upload it separately into the Smart Software.

Step 2: Baseline MDM Configuration Creation

• Create a new configuration in iMazing Profile Editor and add the Baseline by Second Son Consulting payload.
• Add the Google Chrome Installomator Label info:
  • Display Name: Google Chrome
  • Label: googlechrome
• Add the Zoom package info:
  • Display Name: Zoom
  • Package Path: zoomusInstallerFull.pkg
• Add the script info:
  • Display Name: Addigy Policy
  • Script Path: Wait for Addigy Policy.sh
• Add this command string to all three Dialog options: 
  --title "New Device Onboarding" --icon "https://addigy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/addigy-logomark-teal.svg"
• Save the file to your device.

Step 3: Upload the Custom Profile

• Navigate to Catalog > Device Settings > New > Custom Profile to create and upload the profile. See How To Configure and Deploy a Custom Profile for the general steps.
• Upload the Baseline configuration you just created.
• Set the Installation Priority to 1.9.
• Confirm the profile creation.

Step 4: Add to Policy and Enroll a Device

• Add the profile and the Smart Software to your selected policy of enrollment.
• Enroll a device.
• Enjoy the onboarding experience.

Additional Notes

The install script provided will:

• Make a fresh Baseline configuration directory
• Move all recognized file types into their respective spot in the Baseline configuration directory
• Download and install the latest version of the Baseline pkg from the Baseline releases page

Note: The downloadFolder variable on line 4 must be edited to reference your specific Smart Software folder.

The condition script provided will:

• Check whether the onboarding workflow has already run on the device
• Check whether the Addigy enrollment is younger than cutOffTime (preset to 168 hours, or 1 week)

A separate script prints the logs from the Baseline log files, and a script named Wait for Addigy Policy.sh was built to use as a deployed script during the Baseline workflow.

Related Articles

• How To Configure and Deploy a Custom Profile
• Creating Smart Software