iBooks assigned to disabled Apple ID's

pbileci
Contributor

Our students are running Macbook Air's with Sierra 10.12.6 (although we are about to have them upgrade to Mojave). In the past, our students created their own Apple ID's so they are not managed. That changed this year for the new students, but it affects grades 9 - 12 (we're 8 - 12). We are using the Apple VPP store to purchase textbooks. While we used to give them codes, we decided to assign their books using Managed Distribution. So we set everything up in Jamf Pro and had the books assigned to the users.

This worked out fairly well for the most part but we've had issues with students whose Apple ID's were disabled by Apple "for security reasons." They never got their books. I've had to call Apple on several occasions with the affected students present to re-enable their Apple ID's. This has allowed me to issue old codes I had for the same books, but they could not get the books assigned to them through Jamf. We had a few new textbooks this school year, we don't have codes to give them for those books and we don't want to have to pay double to Apple to buy the books again.

Is there a way to re-assign the books to the students in Jamf or is this an Apple issue that needs to be resolved through them? In past, one of my former co-workers had to call Apple and get them to issue codes to us but I was wondering if there's a simple way to do this in Jamf, given that the books are essentially stuck in limbo.

I figure the solution going forward is to have managed Apple ID's for the students but we are only creating those for new students. Older students are still using the Apple ID's they've created.

Thanks!

2 REPLIES 2

MattAebly
Contributor II
Contributor II

Hey Paul,

Unfortunately once an eBook license is assigned to a user with user-based VPP, there is no way for Jamf Pro to reclaim that license. That is one of the caveats of eBook deployment. Managed Apple IDs and eBook deployments are definitely where most people are heading. Unfortunately that still won't be able to get the eBook license reclaimed, but I'll always hope that there might be a way in the future.

Matt

pbileci
Contributor

Right I understand that you can't revoke the license and reassign it to another Apple ID, but it seems like the book was assigned to the Apple ID, but it didn't take because the account was disabled. But now that the account is enabled, she still can't get the book. So it's still assigned to the same account but it's like the book is lost in limbo.