School iPads linked to previous ASM/ADE/DEP

[Planehazza]

A year after taking on board a school into our trust, teachers are still coming forward with iPads that they've "found at home" or "found in cupboards". This time, it's three 7th gen iPad LTE, a good £1500 worth of stuff.  They're locked to the ASM account of a previous IT support who aren't able to assist (yet) with releasing said devices. I do not recall ever being given handover documents for this and Apple aren't really being helpful.

 

Has anyone ever managed to prove ownership to Apple to have them force transfer iPads from from ASM to another? Any tips? the EU support wasn't really helpful; I don't think he understand what I was meaning by organisation and didn't appreciated that the school and the central team are the same company... I'd hate for these three devices to just get skipped 🤦

 

I've read, and previously believed that Apple themselves cannot release iPads from one DEP/ADE to another, but the agent at Apple I spoke to certainly seemed to suggest it was possible, but he was really quite confusing to be honest.

Edited November 26, 2025 by Planehazza

[TheHyperTechie]

To be fair, you may not need the old support provider to release them. Do you/school know who the supplier of the iPads was? if so, you could provide them with the serial numbers and ask if they can move them.

 

We had to do this a lot in my old Trust when moving them from school level ASM setups to a central Trust level tenant.

Edited November 26, 2025 by HyperTech

[Planehazza]

Spoken to Apple ASM UK support and been very helpful. I was escalated up and I'm awaiting an email with various verification steps. It might take a few days/weeks, but it sounds like Apple will be able to get me into the previous ASM account to release the devices.

 

I can confirm, that Apple themselves cannot release devices from an ASM, but it sounds very hopeful they can help via other methods.

[Planehazza]

5 minutes ago, HyperTech said:

To be fair, you may not need the old support provider to release them. Do you/school know who the supplier of the iPads was? if so, you could provide them with the serial numbers and ask if they can move them.

 

We had to do this a lot in my old Trust when moving them from school level ASM setups to a central Trust level tenant.

Interesting, I never thouught the supplier would be able to reallocate these, but it's extremely unlikely this information is anywhere now. It's a very small primary school (~20 students per year group on average) and staff turnover has been... interesting.

[TheHyperTechie]

2 minutes ago, Planehazza said:

Interesting, I never thouught the supplier would be able to reallocate these, but it's extremely unlikely this information is anywhere now. It's a very small primary school (~20 students per year group on average) and staff turnover has been... interesting.

Yeah, we had to do it a lot - as we were onboarding schools at a rapid rate. Was much quicker than sending out a technician and manually wiping them/re-adding them to our system. I think the only caveat, was that you had to provide proof of ownership e.g. invoices, and serial numbers. Most of the time though the iPads were purchased from the same company that we used, so if all else failed they were able to track the serial number to an invoice etc.

[Planehazza]

22 minutes ago, HyperTech said:

Yeah, we had to do it a lot - as we were onboarding schools at a rapid rate. Was much quicker than sending out a technician and manually wiping them/re-adding them to our system. I think the only caveat, was that you had to provide proof of ownership e.g. invoices, and serial numbers. Most of the time though the iPads were purchased from the same company that we used, so if all else failed they were able to track the serial number to an invoice etc.

 

We've currently got 591 iPads in our ASM. I, alone, had to push them up to DEP manually using a 2010 Mac Mini. Yep. It sucks 😅😅 The onboarding of the existing schools into IT was a nightmare and noone knew (convinient) who bought the devices and when. Doesn't help that of our <10 schools, five LAs/support companies have been involved in handovers 🤦

Edited November 26, 2025 by Planehazza

[john]

I've found apple support very helpful with this issue and others when staff have signed in with personal and locked to them rather than us.

 

The key, beyond getting the right person at apple support, is you need an invoice showing you are the owner and it must show the apple product clearly including the serial number, submit it and then they will help solve challenges to get it released / back into your access after some other validation if it's an entire ABM / AEM that you've lost access to. 

[Planehazza]

It's taken a fair bit of emails and calls but Apple are going to delete the existing ASM (thus releasing devices) and allow us to re enrol them to our ASM.

 

Had to provide:

- Photo ID

- Photo of my work badge

- Letter from HR proving my employment

- Letter from the school authorising my request to delete the ASM account

- Acreditation of the school/trust. I had to ask what they meant by this, but in end I've just put links to school and trust websites and the current DfE page for the school

 

Hope this is helpful for anyone reading this thread.

[Sequild]

On 26/11/2025 at 13:54, Planehazza said:

A year after taking on board a school into our trust, teachers are still coming forward with iPads that they've "found at home" or "found in cupboards". This time, it's three 7th gen iPad LTE, a good £1500 worth of stuff.  They're locked to the ASM account of a previous IT support who aren't able to assist (yet) with releasing said devices. I do not recall ever being given handover documents for this and Apple aren't really being helpful.

 

Has anyone ever managed to prove ownership to Apple to have them force transfer iPads from from ASM to another? Any tips? the EU support wasn't really helpful; I don't think he understand what I was meaning by organisation and didn't appreciated that the school and the central team are the same company... I'd hate for these three devices to just get skipped 🤦

 

I've read, and previously believed that Apple themselves cannot release iPads from one DEP/ADE to another, but the agent at Apple I spoke to certainly seemed to suggest it was possible, but he was really quite confusing to be honest.

So your approach is correct, just go to the end and close the issue. In the future, I would immediately check all accounts and accesses during any transfer, because such trifles then fly by the wayside. And another point, sometimes it really helps to see how others structure similar requests or documents. When I'm looking for info, I visit at MySuperGeek where they help with educational tasks and explain how to properly design such things. It helps a little to sort everything out. In short, you did the maximum that you could, and it's good that you didn't give up.

In short, you asked this question well, because many people would simply write off those iPads.