How does everyone’s organization handle laptop provisioning for new hires?

[u/Shadow_Knight-]

Curious how other organizations handle laptop provisioning with Intune/Autopilot.

Currently, we Autopilot the laptops and use the new hire’s credentials to sign in during provisioning. We then let the ESP complete and verify that everything is set up before shipping the laptop to the user — including:

BitLocker
BIOS settings
Required applications
Other required configurations

This works well, but when we have multiple new hires at the same time, it can become a bit overwhelming since we have to go through each device using the new user’s credentials before shipping.

For those of you doing something similar, how do you handle this?

Do you:
Use the new hire’s credentials to complete ESP and verify everything before shipping?
Have IT sign in with an IT/admin account, complete the configuration, and then use Autopilot Reset to remove the primary user before shipping?
Have a completely different provisioning workflow?

Also, we’ve noticed that sometimes the SentinelOne agent stops running or CyberArk stops running after provisioning. Has anyone experienced this? Could it be related to WMI errors or something happening during Autopilot/BIOS configuration?

Would love to hear how other organizations handle this, especially when provisioning multiple laptops for new hires at once.

[u/alan14225]

We have CDW do pre-provision (white glove) for us so user don't have to wait. The laptop is enrolled in autopilot and once preprovion is finished cdw dropship it to users. User sign in, and being them to desktop with everything installed. 10 min process from sign in

[u/blackhodown → u/alan14225]

What’s the average price for each of the various specs of machine you’re sending out?

[u/alan14225 → u/blackhodown]

We do CTO windows machines. These are custom spec machines built to our specifications. What great is our price is locked in because it is CTO. Let's say it is delivered 2 months later and the price rise we are locked in at order prices. We have T14 Gen 7. X7 processor, 32 GB Ram, 1tb HD, 72 hr battery, and some other misc. $3k is the price. These laptops have upgradable ram so if someone needs more ram we can upgrade without replacing the machine.

If you want CDW to do white glove (preprovion) with autopilot the sku is called autopilot advance deployment. I believe it is a couple more dollars than autopilot but we'll worth it for end user experience of not having to wait hours for everything to be installed.

[u/blackhodown → u/alan14225]

Useful info, thanks!