Setting Up Kandji or Rippling IT for a Field Service Team

A technician-assigned laptop should be treated like any other employee device: enrolled to that person, wiped when they leave. A van-assigned device that rotates between whoever's on shift needs a different model, enrolled to the van or role rather than a person, with a shared login process that doesn't depend on remembering who used it last. Decide this up front, because retrofitting the distinction after a fleet is already enrolled means re-doing the setup.

Service manuals, parts catalogs and work order forms often need to be available without a live connection, since plenty of industrial sites have poor or no cell signal in the areas where equipment actually sits. Confirm with whatever field service software you run that its offline mode doesn't depend on constant contact with an MDM platform to function, since a device management policy that silently blocks an app from working offline is worse than no policy at all.

If your technicians run Windows-based rugged laptops, which is common in this trade because a lot of industrial diagnostic software is Windows-only, Rippling IT's cross-platform coverage is the direct fit. If your fleet is iPad-based instead, which some smaller shops prefer for durability and simplicity, Kandji's Apple-native controls apply. Check your diagnostic software's OS requirements before the device platform, since that constraint usually decides the hardware, and the hardware decides which MDM tool actually applies.

Say a van's laptop gets used by three different technicians across a week. Rather than logging each one in individually, which most field teams find impractical, use a role-based account with shared device-level passcodes and encryption, and rely on your work order system's own login for accountability at the task level, not the device level. Device management here is protecting the laptop itself, encryption, remote lock if the van is broken into, not tracking which specific technician touched it at 2pm on a Tuesday.

For devices that rotate between technicians, set them up this way:

1. Enroll van devices to the van or role instead of to an individual technician.
2. Use a role-based account with a shared device passcode and encryption, since logging each technician in individually is impractical.
3. Rely on the work order system's own login for accountability at the task level, not the device login.
4. Confirm the field service software's offline mode works without live contact with the management platform.
5. Budget for replacement devices from the start, since drops and heat damage are more common than theft.

Rugged doesn't mean indestructible, and a laptop dropped from a ladder or left in a hot van is a more common loss scenario in this trade than theft. Build device replacement into your rollout budget from the start rather than treating each loss as a surprise, and make sure your platform of choice makes reassigning a replacement device to a van or technician fast, since a tech without a working laptop is a tech who can't bill.

Field conditions expose gaps that an office pilot never will: a passcode policy that's unusable with gloves on, an app restriction that blocks a diagnostic tool a technician actually needs in the field. Schedule a real review after the first busy season rather than assuming the initial rollout got everything right, and be ready to loosen a restriction that's generating workarounds instead of doubling down on it.

A field service business growing past a handful of technicians sometimes considers a dedicated ops or IT hire to manage device logistics instead of relying on a platform. It's worth pricing honestly: national wage data puts the median salary for a general operations manager, a role commonly stretched to cover this kind of responsibility at a growing field service shop, at $105,770 a year¹. For a fleet of a dozen or two rugged laptops, a platform subscription with automated enrollment and remote lock is usually the cheaper starting point, with a dedicated hire making more sense once the fleet, and the logistics around it, grows considerably larger.

Either way, don't let this decision stall on a hypothetical future hire that never actually gets budgeted. A lot of field service shops keep deferring a device platform while waiting to justify a full-time IT role that keeps losing out to other hiring priorities, which just leaves the current manual process running longer than anyone intended.