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Distributing IOS Apps through SMC 3.6

Dave_C

HI, can anyone offer any guidance on purchasing/deploying IOS Apps through SMC?

I have enrolled in the Apple VPP scheme and downloaded the token to SMC, but cant find any instructions on where to go from here

I cant buy Apps through the VPP until I have set up a VPP Facilitator account, but cannot find out how to do this so cannot buy the apps.

And what happens then - the Apple documentaion implies that I then have to invite end users to create their own apple-id and link it to the VPP using iTunes to be abel to download the app, but this sounds very long-winded and complicated.

Surely the whole point of any MDM solution should be that it is able to deploy apps without the end-users involvement?

Any help or sadvice would be much appreciated....

:46719


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  • 0

    Hi Dave_C,

    at first you have to invite your users to your VPP program and they have to subscribe to it using their personal Apple ID.
    The SMC administrator does not know the Apple ID the users used.

    This is also described in the VPP manual provided by Apple which is available here.

    Once the users subscribed you can assign them the apps. This "subsctiption" has only to be done once!

    A description how to invite users and assign them apps with Sophos Mobile Control is described in chapter 16.3 of the administrator guide which can be found on our documentation page.

    Unfortunately, this is the way it works and how it is implemented by Apple. We as an MDM vendor rely on the processes provided by Apple.

    Hope this helps.


    Best regards

    Stefan

    :46851
  • 0

    Thanks Stefan

    If I am distributing company owned IOS devices for a specific purope and dont want the end user to have their own Apple ID can I just enrol a single Apple ID in the VPP and then use this for all subseqent IOS devices, or will I need to have a seperate Apple ID for each device?

    I understand that this is down to Apple and not Sophos, but I am just trying to understand how to make it as simple as possible

    It is quite frustrating trying to deal with Apple at a corporate level (I am still unable to purchase any apps through the VPP despite having enrolled in this Program and downloaded the token to SMC etc) so I am hoping to minimise the interaction required with Apple as much as possible for our end users!

    Regards, dave

    :46853
  • 0

    Hi Dave,

    I am not sure if that is a valid procedure according to the terms and conditions of Apple.

    Looking at this page here the following points are listed :

    AUTOMATIC DELIVERY AND DOWNLOADING PREVIOUS PURCHASES

    Association of Associated Devices is subject to the following terms:

    (i) You may auto-download Eligible Content or download previously-purchased Eligible Content from an Account on up to 10 Associated Devices, provided no more than 5 are iTunes-authorized computers.

    (ii) An Associated Device can be associated with only one Account at any given time.

    (iii) You may switch an Associated Device to a different Account only once every 90 days.

    (iv) You may download previously-purchased free content onto an unlimited number of devices while it is free on the App and Book Services, but on no more than 5 iTunes-authorized computers.

    Sounds like one Apple ID for all devices is not a valid procedure.

    Best regards

    Stefan

    :46857
  • 0

    thanks, one last question then (I think):

    I have enrolled in teh VPP and "purchased" licenses for some free apps.

    I have installed token to SMC, invited users to join VPP and assigned the licenses for the VPP apps to these users

    I cannot however see how to physically deploy these apps to the end users/devices

    Nothing shows up under "Applications" apart from the Sophos Apps, so have I missed something - do I physically need to import those apps into SMC somehow??

    Thanks, Dave

    :46895
  • 0

    Hi Dave,

    sorry for the late reply.

    You have to create an application package for the iOS app you want to deploy and use a link you can get from here.

    Once the VPP application package is created and saved you have two possibilities to assign VPP licenses  to users.

    1. Via the application package itself.

    Edit the VPP application package in the SMC console and press the "Show" button next to VPP licenses.

    You can now select all the VPP users which you have invited and who already confirmed the inviation.

    2. Via the "VPP users" section

    Go to the "VPP users" section and edit the user in question. Once in the edit mode, press the "Show VPP licenses" button.
    In this view, all your VPP apps should be displayed and you can mark the checkbox to assign one license to this user.

    Once a license is assigned to the user, you can deploy the packages to the devices.

    In general, the whole VPP / application handling stuff is desribed in chapter 16 of the administrator guide.

    I hope this helps.


    Best regards

    Stefan

    :46947
  • 0

    I still can't distribute apps due to various errors, and I need some further clafification and help please:

    Duplicate post, please go to:

     

    http://community.sophos.com/t5/Sophos-Mobile-Control/Problems-with-SMC-VPP-set-up-and-deployment/td-p/49012

     

    Thanks, Sandy, Moderator

    :49010
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