Goodbye Custom Profiles, Hello MDM Configurations.
Custom profiles and Addigy Profiles have provided a way for you to install .mobileconfig profiles to a device via the Addigy Agent for years. At WWDC 2019, we learned that the "profiles install" command will no longer be supported in future macOS versions. Because of Apple's new path forward, we are announcing the deprecation of Custom Profiles. Custom Profiles will not deploy to macOS Big Sur (macOS 11).
Note: User creation is moving to a new location in the Catalog and is NOT being deprecated.
What about User Creation?
User creation is moving into its own category of the Catalog. When the new User configuration process is released, Addigy will migrate existing User creation parts of existing Custom Profiles to the new mechanism. The underlying mechanism to create a new user will not receive changes as part of this migration.
You may continue to use the Profiles to create Users until Custom Profiles are removed.
Addigy will inform you when you can no longer create users in a Custom Profile and instead through the new User Configuration Catalog item.
What does this mean for my existing Custom Profiles/Profiles?
Existing Custom Profiles/Profiles will continue to work as usual for now, though we recommend you start moving towards one of the recommend migration paths. We will be deprecating this feature in stages. All currently supported features will be supported through different means before the removal of Custom Profiles/Profiles occurs.
Step 1: Announce deprecation and add deprecation label to Custom Profiles/Profiles User Interface. (Aug, 2020)
Step 2: Remove the ability to create new Custom Profiles/Profiles and move existing Custom Profiles to Custom Software. (Q4 2020)
Step 3: Remove Custom Profiles/Profiles from the platform entirely. (Q2 2021)
Migration Paths
Custom Profiles -> MDM Configurations (Requires Addigy MDM)
We recommend you move any .mobileconfig file deployments over to a Custom MDM Configuration. If you need help setting up MDM, its quick, simple, and our support team would be more than happy to help!
More information on how to achieve that here:
https://support.addigy.com/support/solutions/articles/8000071698-configuring-and-deploying-any-mdm-profile
Custom Profiles -> Smart Software
In some cases, you may have some software items inside of Custom profiles. We recommend you move that over to Smart Software and take advantage of all auto PPPC generation!
More information on Smart Software here:
https://support.addigy.com/support/solutions/articles/8000083767-smart-software