How To Assign VPP Licenses

VPP Licenses

VPP Licenses can be assigned to either a user or a device, and it can be done manually or configured so the system automatically assigns licenses where needed. The different methods of assigning licenses will be explained below.

It is assumed that you have both licenses and users in your VPP Account and they have been synchronized to CapaInstaller. Read more about that process here: Apple Volume licenses with CapaInstaller MDM

Manually assign licenses to users

In order to manually assign licenses to users, you need to use either the VPP License Buffer or the VPP User Buffer.

1. Add a license to the buffer.
   1. This can be done by selecting the VPP application in the system navigation pane, and right-clicking on one or more licenses in the content view, and selecting Add to buffer. You could also just right-click the VPP application in the navigation pane and select Add to buffer, which will add all the licenses for that application to the buffer.
2. Find the VPP user(s) you wish to assign a license. Right-click the user(s) and select Paste from the buffer.

Alternatively, you can add users to the buffer, and paste those on one or more licenses.

The system will now attempt to assign the licenses you have in your buffer to the users that are selected. A dialog will show the progress of the assignment, which involves contacting Apple services, and once the process is completed you are informed of how many licenses were successfully assigned. For more detailed information about the assignment process, and why some licenses may have failed to be assigned, you can look in the Console log.

Once a license has been successfully assigned to a device, it status will change to Associated. In order to assign it to another user or device, you first need to revoke it. In the screenshot below, the licensed application 'Evernote' has been selected, and the content view on the right shows each license and if it has been assigned to either a user or a device.

Manually assign licenses to devices

You can assign a license directly to a device by right clicking the licensed application in System Administration and selecting 'Assign to device'. This will open a search dialog where you can find the iOS device you wish to assign a license to. Once you have found it, select it and click on the button 'Return Selected'. The system chooses the first available license for the chosen application and assigns it to the serial number of the device. Which license was assigned can be seen in the content view on the right. The license will change status to Associated and its 'Linked device' will show the name of the device you chose.

Automatically assign licenses

When creating a Device Application in Configuration Management, you can specify a VPP account it should use licenses from, and if it should attempt to assign them to a user or a device when it is scheduled for installation.

The primary assignment method will be attempted first, and if that doesn't succeed it will attempt to assign a license with the second method.

See more about how you create Device Applications here: Create Apps

There are a few conditions that have to be met for the auto-assignment of licenses to work, and those depend on the assignment method chosen in the device application.

• A license for the app needs to be available in the VPP Account.
  
  • User-assigned licenses
    
    • Devices must have iOS8 or higher.
    • Devices must use an Apple ID which will need to have been collected by the system during inventory.
    • The Apple ID must be associated with the VPP account.
  • Device-assigned licenses
    • Devices must have iOS9 and up or macOS 10.12 and above
    • The system needs to have collected the serial number of the device.

If neither the device or the user of the device has a license to an application when it is being installed, its status will change to 'Needs license key' in the console. You could then manually assign a license to the user or device, and schedule it for installation again, but the system can automate this process if you have configured the Device Application to use licenses from a VPP Account. Periodically the replicator service will check and assign the license, The user's needs to attempt the installation again. The automatic assignment of licenses in this process will only consist of user-assigned licenses, and it will only do so if the user on the device is associated with the same VPP Account as the Device Application.