Setting Up a Chromebook
We are using chromebooks as our default computing platform for end users because we can manage them centrally and they are widely available from consumer channels with a variety of capabilities.
To take a consumer chromebook and make it an Enterprise Chromebook an Enterprise Upgrade license is required. Some chromebooks can be purchased with these, but in general we are purchasing these separately from our VAR promevo and keeping a supply on hand so that we can provision new machines as needed.
So you have a new chromebook fresh from the store and you want to make it a Renegade Chromebook. If you are dealing with a chromebook that has been used before see the instructions at the end about how to power wash it to return it to the "out of the box" condition.
Step #1 - Item Tag
These are the labels with a QR Code and an item number. Generally you should be able to use one of the bigger ones and attach it to the bottom of the machine. Just make sure it's one that won't get smudged by sitting on a desk.
After attaching the label go ahead and scan it with your phone and update what type of item you have attached the label to in the item tracking system.
A stock of unused item tags should be available in each of our labs. If you don't have one of these available it's okay to do this step later, but do please eventually get an item tag on all equipment owned by Renegade Bio.
Step #2 - Network
Turn it on. If it's fresh out of the box from a retail store you almost certainly need to plug it in for this setup. When a chromebook first starts either from the factory or from being power washed it will ask to join a network. If you are in a place where you can enter the renbio-lab network here that's probably what you want to do. If not, any wifi network will work for setup.
Optionally you can of course connect it to ethernet via an appropriate USB adapter.
Step #3 - Enrollment
After it joins the network and you have accepted the terms of service (it's okay to send feedback to google about machine crashes), the chromebook will ask you to login. DO NOT LOGIN YET!
Before the first login you need to enroll the machine in our enterprise. This can be done either by selecting it from the "More Options" menu shown below the username prompt or by pressing CTRL-ALT-e. This will bring up a different login field asking you to login to enroll it for enterprise management. Now you can login. Any user in our domain is able to do this step.
After enrolling in the domain any user can now login to the machine and it will be controlled from our central admin console.
Step #4 - Update the Admin console
This step requires access to the admin console. If you do not have access to this console just create a new ticket telling the IT team that you have enrolled a new chromebook and if you've attached an item tag to it tell us what number is on the tag.
Go to admin.google.com > Device management > Chrome devices and you should now see a new entry for the machine that just enrolled in the domain. There are two things to update here. The first is to move it into the proper organizational unit so that it gets the right settings for where it is going to live. There are three of these so far all with "Chromebooks" in the name and hopefully it's pretty obvious which OU each machine should live in.
The last thing to do which is somewhat optional but would be nice is to modify the information in the google console to include the Asset ID from the tag on the bottom of the machine as well as the Location. We're really tracking this information elsewhere but might as well record the beginning of the machine's life here even if they get moved around later.
Power washing a previously used machine
We can enroll any chromebook into our domain as long as we have a licenses available. However, this has to be done before the machine is used, so what to do if someone opened up the computer and started using it without doing this step first? No problem. The resetting process is called "power washing" the machine and it removes all user information and sets the machine back to factory defaults at which point you can follow the procedure above.
To power wash, first log out of the machine. The press SHIFT-CTRL-ALT-R to reset to factory defaults. Follow the on screen prompts and after a reboot should end up back at the screen asking for the very first network setup.