Bulk Re-enable Chrome Devices

Bulk re-enabling chrome devices is another useful feature while working on Google Workspace. It helps to restore the licenses for those Chrome devices (of any organization) which were disabled for a long time using Google Workspace.

Foresight provides an easy solution for performing the same actions that are mentioned above. It can help in re-enabling thousands of devices in a jiffy. It can also be done with the help of Google Workspace Admin. But this action can only be performed for a small number of devices using Google Workspace Admin. In cases like this one, Foresight comes in as a handy tool. 

Why do we need to bulk re-enable Chrome devices?

Re-enabling a chrome device means setting it back to a Provisioned Status from a disabled device. Different situations would require the Google Workspace Admin to re-enable a device. Some of the situations are mentioned below:

• Chrome Devices returned after repairs.
• Devices that have undergone a Factory Reset for some reason. Factory Resetting a device deletes all user information from its hard drive.
• In case the Chrome device has been stolen and then rescued. After it has been handed over to the user, it needs to be re-enabled.
• Disabling a device unnecessarily due to a technical fault or lack of sincerity.

All the cases mentioned above require the Chrome devices to be re-enabled. Many educational institutions and health sectors provided their services through Chromebook when Covid-19 was raging on. So, it becomes absolutely inevitable to re-enable Chrome Devices when these professionals or students return to their organization. At the same time being aware of the ChromeOS device management also helps your case.

How to Bulk Re-enable Chrome Devices with Foresight

The main advantage of using Foresight is that it allows thousands of devices to be bulk disabled at a time. Google Admin, on the other hand, performs this task only for a limited number of devices at a time.

Also, Foresight uses different triggers and actions to perform tasks automatically and quickly. Hence, it's time safe and helps to extend production.

Video demo

This video demo shows you the procedure of using Foresight to bulk Re-enable chrome devices so that you can understand it very well.

Instructions

Rule Setup

Let us set up this rule. Suppose we are an organization's classroom in Google Workspace. There you can see the chrome devices from the Admin console. Now, you can find the devices from the Grade 1 organization unit. Each of them is entitled to a Status so that you can easily identify a Deprovisioned device. Deprovision means they are not allowed or unauthorized to the organization. So, your task is to Re-enable those devices.

Here, 50 devices are taken for demo purposes. But in a real-life business scenario, the quantity is intended to be in thousands.

Let's jump into the process of how Foresight makes it easy for us!

This process is divided into two parts-

Part 1: Exporting Chrome devices in CSV (Comma-Separated Values) list from the Grade 1 Organization unit.

Part 2: Re-enabling 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  button in the bottom right corner.
3. Select the Manual trigger and then list chrome devices action. List Chrome Devices appears by searching with the keyword ‘device’, manually. The manual trigger starts by manually clicking on the Rules card.
4. Follow these steps:
   1. At first, the step required is to grant permission to access the Google Workspace account by Foresight.
   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 REVIEW button, and enter the rule name. Then click on CREATE.
6. Now, the rule is created for the Grade 1 chrome devices list. 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.    

Part 2 Re-enabling the Chrome devices via exported CSV files.

1. Sign in to Foresight.
2. Go to the Rules page and click on the New Rule  button in the bottom right corner.
3. Follow these steps here.
   1. Then select the Data uploaded trigger from the New Rule page and upload the CSV file. After uploading the CSV file, you can find the columns of the CSV.
   2. Then click on NEXT and select Re-enable Chrome device action from Select an Action.
4. Follow these steps here.
   1. Grant the necessary permissions to the Foresight account.
   2. Then you need to select the ID in the Device id field and click on the REVIEW button.
5. Enter the rule name as Re-enable Chrome Devices in Grade 1. Then click on CREATE.
6. This rule is created now and it’s time to upload the same CSV file again by clicking the upload icon.
7. Follow these steps here:
   1. Whenever you upload the CSV file, the rule will run automatically. After that, you will see a notification in the top right corner saying the CSV file has been processed. Click on Show all options to view all the results. Also, the results can be seen on the Logs page.
   2. Now, the rule is triggered by uploading the CSV file and the devices are Re-enabled now.
8. Finally, you can observe the status of all devices have been changed to the Provisioned at Admin console page. That means all the devices are accessible now.

Note:

Bulk re-enable of Chrome devices takes some vital actions to be performed. They are-

• The re-enabled devices get back all the Chrome licenses, but you have to ensure that the device has an upgraded version.
• Now, the user can sign-in again with the chrome device.
• Returns Chromebook serial number, location, and user information.
• The printer setup is returned for the device.

If this process of bulk re-enabling of Chrome devices with the help of Foresight has solved your purposes, then you can visit the Blog section on the xFanatical’s website to learn more.