Undo removal of apps

Question

For some unknown reason, the apps GoodNotes and TI-Nspire have been removed from a lot of students' and teachers' iPads. Now these apps show the status "Deferred item. Will be removed on 2022-12-28." I can only click on "Remove item", but I would like to easily restore these two apps without loosing any data.

I found on the internet that you remove the affected device from the scope and but them back into the scope (it is a dynamic group). I have tried that without success. I have also tried to re-install apps without success. For students, I was able to push the app back on the device by going through each individual student on the app Jamf Teacher and install the app again. But I can't do this for teachers.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome.

GregBobbett · Answer

I'm going to ask a couple questions and give some possibilities for you to look into. Hopefully one of these will solve your issue.

1. Do you have enough licenses for the apps? If you run out of licenses (the deferred ones count against the total as well) it may keep the app from installing. Go to Apps > Inventory > click Content License Overview. If the numbers under the 'Surplus' column are negative or zero, you need to either get more licenses or release the deferred items.

2. Check to see if 'Reinstall this app when it's removed by the end-user' is turned on in the app management page. Apps > Inventory > click the app > Options section > change to Enable. This will allow the app to automatically reinstall if a student or teacher deletes the app on the device. If I remember correctly, it'll do this overnight.

3. Test your Smart Groups. Is there something that is causing the device to be removed from the Smart Group and thus removing the app from the device? Too many variables in Smart Groups can make them tricky. I actually don't use Smart Groups for applying apps very much, especially when using free apps. I figure that I'll just "buy" as many of the free apps as I need for ALL my students and teachers then use groups in the Scope to apply it.

4. You can also set the app to not be removeable by end users Apps > Inventory > click the app > Options section > Prevent Users from removing the app (iOS 14 and later).

5. Are your teachers using School Managed Apple IDs? If so, they should work just like the Student Managed Apple IDs. If they are using personal Apple IDs, the teachers will need to get the app on their own. Although, I believe you can "assign" it in Jamf as an available install.

That's all i can think of right now. There was one more, but it faded during my writing of this really long response.

Good Luck,

Greg

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