Supporting the in-house IT of an agency with 160 Macs: Mac management, support and migrations
From November 2023 to March 2026 I regularly supported the in-house IT of a communications agency in Hamburg, with day-to-day support, Mac management and migrations.
- Client
- Communications agency
- Industry
- Communications and PR, Hamburg
- Period
- November 2023 to March 2026
Starting point
The communications agency works with around 160 Macs, while file services still run on Windows servers. The in-house IT team was stretched by day-to-day work. At the same time several projects were due: central device management for the Macs, moving the mailboxes to the cloud and bringing more order to file storage and processes.
Solution
On agreed on-site days I handled tickets and onboardings in person so the in-house team had time for its projects. The Macs first came under Microsoft Intune: policies, encryption and automated setup the first time a device is switched on. Later I moved Mac management to Iru, a system specialised in Apple: commands and scripts sent from Intune sometimes took minutes or hours to reach the Macs, while Iru responds much faster. The mailboxes moved to Exchange Online. I planned the migration in workshops with the external migration provider and coordinated it with the in-house team. Alongside that came a SharePoint solution for managing freelancers, tidied-up Teams structures and an asset management system for devices, licences and contracts.
Outcome
The Macs are centrally managed, new devices are set up automatically, and the agency can see which device is with whom and which licence belongs to it. Mailboxes, file storage and Teams follow agreed rules. The in-house IT delivered its projects and kept the knowledge in-house.
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