Volume Purchasing Apps

[KSBS]

We've been asked to purchase an app for a set of 20 iPads that teachers use to hand out to students for a lesson. We currently use Apple Configurator 1.7.2 with supervision set up on these iPads. The iPads are currently signed in to an iCloud account but not an Apple ID.

 

What is the best way to go about purchasing 20 apps and then deploying them to the iPads without having to worry about if we have to wipe the iPads and then re-load the app?

[tmoon-mint]

Using device based distribution via an MDM is the way to go here.

 

I use Meraki which is free for up to 100 devices. Apps are assigned to a device and can be revoked and reassigned as required. Absolutely no Apple ID required.

[Roopert]

Apple have a 'Volume Purchasing Programme' which you can use to buy multiple licenses for apps. This would handle the buying of many licenses at once.

 

The part where you may need another Mobile Device Management solution will be when you try and distribute these apps - you can put them into a profile in Apple configurator, but the easier way to manage the apps 'on the fly' ie. put an app on in the future easily is with an additional MDM solution eg. Zuludesk, Lightspeed and Meraki.

[KSBS]

Apple have a 'Volume Purchasing Programme' which you can use to buy multiple licenses for apps. This would handle the buying of many licenses at once.

 

The part where you may need another Mobile Device Management solution will be when you try and distribute these apps - you can put them into a profile in Apple configurator, but the easier way to manage the apps 'on the fly' ie. put an app on in the future easily is with an additional MDM solution eg. Zuludesk, Lightspeed and Meraki.

 

Am I right in thinking if we put the licenses from VPP into Apple Configurator, once a license has been used, if we were then to wipe an iPad that had it installed, we wouldnt get the license back and wouldn't be able to put the app back on?

[cogrady84]

I'm going to chime in and suggest Profile Manager for OTA app deployment. Sounds like you already have a Mac setup with Configurator, so adding profile manager to the equation should be fairly trivial

 

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Am I right in thinking if we put the licenses from VPP into Apple Configurator, once a license has been used, if we were then to wipe an iPad that had it installed, we wouldnt get the license back and wouldn't be able to put the app back on?

 

You would need to reclaim the license prior to wiping the device, remove the app using Configurator

[tmoon-mint]

Am I right in thinking if we put the licenses from VPP into Apple Configurator, once a license has been used, if we were then to wipe an iPad that had it installed, we wouldnt get the license back and wouldn't be able to put the app back on?

 

Depends how the apps are purchased. If you use redemption codes once the code is redeemed by an Apple ID it cannot be reclaimed. If you use managed distribution then once an app is assigned to either an Apple ID or a device it can be revoked again.

[cogrady84]

Depends how the apps are purchased. If you use redemption codes once the code is redeemed by an Apple ID it cannot be reclaimed. If you use managed distribution then once an app is assigned to either an Apple ID or a device it can be revoked again.

 

When migrating from redemption codes to managed distribution, I was able to unassign the apps from devices which reclaimed the codes for reuse. When reclaimed I then submitted a request to Apple to convert all of my codes to managed distribution.

 

Not sure about other vendors, but using AC/PM, you can definately reclaim used codes.

[tmoon-mint]

When migrating from redemption codes to managed distribution, I was able to unassign the apps from devices which reclaimed the codes for reuse. When reclaimed I then submitted a request to Apple to convert all of my codes to managed distribution.

 

Not sure about other vendors, but using AC/PM, you can definately reclaim used codes.

 

Sorry yeah you're quite right if you used AC1 you can reclaim them.