Introduction

When you are working with Google Workspace, it's important to be careful about device management. Several tasks need execution to maintain the Chrome devices. But what happens when you no longer need to manage a Chrome device? that's why sometimes a manager needs to bulk deprovision Chrome devices in Google Workspace.

In that case, you need to Deprovision a Chrome device. When you do this, the device automatically goes to factory reset mode. This leads to erasing all data, including device policies, enrollment data and user data. It means now the Provisioned device has become converted to a blank slate.

Foresight is a Google Workspace workflow that allows you to bulk deprovision chrome devices. It allows thousands of chrome devices to become deprovision at once.  Google admin console does have the option, but it allows only limited devices to select at a time. So here, Foresight works best.  You just need some simple steps to do that. Foresight also provides a 14-day free trial for this.

Why do you need to bulk deprovision Chrome devices in Google Workspace?

Sometimes you don't need to manage a Chrome Device or a group of them, so you need to remove those uncontrolled devices from Google Admin Console to prohibit any security threats. That's why you need to deprovision Chromebooks. 

 Here are some scenarios when you need to do this –

  • To replace or upgrade an older model.
  • Permanently remove a device from your organization so an outsider/ stranger can't use it.
  • The technician needs to test and fully repair the defective device after it undergoes repair or return.
  • The old user policies become inapplicable when a student graduates or when a K-12 school assigns a device to a new student.

Therefore, the admin should be aware of when to perform this action.

How to bulk deprovision Chrome devices in Google Workspace using Google Admin Console?

  1. Sign in to your Google Admin console via an Administrator account.
  2. Then go to 'Devices>Chrome Devices' from the home page of Admin Console.
  3. Now, it's vital to select the present status of targeted devices. Select "all" in the Status filter at the top of the devices list.
  4. Then it's necessary to select a 'Top Organization Unit' from the left side because all the users/ groups of devices belong to the top organizational unit. Leave it if it is already selected.
  5. Alternatively, you can select a 'Child Organizational Unit' because the Child unit is able to inherit all the settings and policies from the parent unit or top unit.
  6. Check the box for the device you want to deprovision. Check multiple boxes for multiple devices if required.
  7. Next, click on Deprovision at the top.
  8. Choose an option to set up a rule either Yes, for factory reset to remove all data about user profiles and devices. Or No, for keeping existing data about user profiles and devices. Also, confirm that you understand the actions for re-enrolling a device.
  9. Finally, select the reason for the deprovision and click on the Deprovision option.

How to bulk deprovision Chrome devices in Google Workspace with Foresight?

Foresight provides the ability to bulk disable thousands of devices at once, whereas Google Admin limits this functionality to a limited number of devices.

The Foresight established some rules for every action. Foresight uses a trigger that automates the workflow to execute a particular action. In this case, we use Manual trigger with the Deprovisioned Chrome devices action. Hence, it saves time and helps to improve productivity.

Video demo

This video demo shows you the procedure of using Foresight to bulk deprovision Chrome Devices so that you can understand it very well.

Instructions

  • Rule Setup

Let us take an organization’s classroom in Google Workspace as an example here. There you can see the chrome devices from the Admin console. Now, you can find the devices from the Grade 1 organization unit. Every provisioned device has a Status so that you can identify it easily. The provision means they are allowed or authorized to the organization. Your task is to deprovision those devices.

We are taking 50 devices for demo purposes here. However, in a real business scenario, the quantity would be thousands.

Now this process divided into two parts-

  • Part 1: Exporting Chromebooks in CSV (Comma-Separated Values) list from Grade 1 Organization unit.
  • Part 2: Deprovision the Chrome devices via exported CSV files.

Here, am discussing them in detail-

  • Process for Part 1
  1. Sign in to your Foresight account using your Google Admin account.
  2. Go to the Rules page and click on the New Rule New rule button button of the bottom right corner.
  3. Select the Manual Trigger > list chrome devices action. List Chrome Devices appears by searching with the keyword ‘device’, manually. The manual trigger starts on manually clicking on the Rules card.
  4. Follow these sub-steps.
    1. First, you need to grant Foresight the necessary permission to access the Google Workspace account.
    2. Then set up the Columns field by leaving the default columns and select /students/Grade 1 in the Organizational unit field. And just leave the rest of the fields.
  5.  Click on the REVIEW button and enter the rule name as Grade 1 Chrome devices list. Then click on CREATE.
  6. Now, the rule is created for the Grade 1 chrome devices list. Also, a Rule created pop-up message will appear at the bottom. You need to click on the play icon to trigger the rule.
  7. After that, you will see a notification in the top right corner saying the rule setup was executed successfully. Click on Show all to view all the results. Also, the results can be seen on the Logs page.
  8. Finally, the rule is triggered successfully and 50 Chrome devices have been exported to the CSV file. The CSV file download link is given in the Action history section.
  •  Process for Part 2 

These are the benefits of Bulk Deprovision Chrome Devices by Foresight takes place-

  1. Sign-in to Foresight.
  2. Go to the Rules page and click on the New Rule New rule button button of the bottom right corner.    
  3. Follow these sub-steps here.
    1. Then select the Data uploaded trigger from the New Rule page.
    2. Upload the CSV file. That we have just downloaded.
  4. When the CSV file uploading is completed, you can see the columns regarding that file. But just leave them and click NEXT.
  5. Select Deprovision Chrome device action.
  6. At first, the step required to grant permission to access the Google Workspace account by Foresight.
  7. Now, select the Device ID and the Deprovision reason as RETIRING_DEVICE. Then click on REVIEW.
  8. Enter the rule name as Deprovision the Chrome Device and click on the CREATE button.
  9. It’s time to upload the same CSV file again by clicking the upload icon.
  10. After that, you will see a notification in the top right corner saying the rule has run successfully. Click on Show all to view all the results. Also, the results can be seen on the Logs page.
  11.  Finally, you can observe the status of all devices has been changed to Deprovisioned.

Note:

  • Remove user accounts, device policies, and licenses.
  • Also, remove device-level printers and access to Kiosk Mode.
  • Google Admin Console is removing the serial number of the device from the Provisioned view.

Apart from this, Foresight can also be used to create mail merge templates and customize them. You can also export Google Chrome Devices List in Google Workspace using Foresight. Visit Foresight’s web page to know more about it and its use cases.

Try a 14-day free trial with Foresight and manage your tasks. 

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