Moving to VPP from redemption codes

[Retrac]

Hoping someone can shed some light on this with some real world experience.

We currently have VPP enabled and have been purchasing apps via the VPP portal for about 12 months, this is under an iTunes account mycompanyvpp@mycomany.com

Before VPP was around we purchased many apps using two different iTunes accounts mycompany1@mycompany.com and mycompany2@mycompany.com. These all have redemption codes that were never used as we cheated with the MAS receipt hack to package them.

We now need to convert all the redemption codes purchased by mycompany1 and mycomany2 and add them to mycompanyvpp so they can be allocated to Macs.

Does anyone know if this can be done?

I have a feeling Apple will just convert mycompany1 to a VPP account and then migrate the redemption codes. Really don't want to have multiple VPP accounts!

[Sandy]

Apple will convert codes purchased in VPP to licenses. They will convert any codes that were redeemed using Apple Configurator or any unredeemed. They will not convert codes that were purchased outside of VPP. The conversion is an all or nothing one time deal per VPP. once converted you still have the ability in VPP to buy codes OR licenses.
They also have a little gotcha where if any codes on a sheet were redeemed to a personal apple ID, they negate the whole sheet. Not sure how they make that call.... They absolutely will not consolidate VPP accounts into one, and they will absolutely not move licenses from one to another VPP account.
Which device based management however you can deploy apps to devices from multipe VPP account tokens.

[Retrac]

Right, so as expected the only way to keep the £££ worth of AppStore purchases is to create multiple VPP accounts that the redeemable codes were purchased under and then migrate them in one go to a managed distro. Then add multiple VPP tokens in Casper for deployment.

What an absolute shower of £$%@£ but then that's Apple in enterprise for you.

Thanks for the prompt response though.

[bumbletech]

I'm not sure about @Sandy 's comment about if an app had been redeemed they negate the whole sheet. When prepping one of our school districts for the move, I went over all of the apps and sheets to calculate what should be redeemed. It appears that if there's codes available, they will migrate regardless of how they were redeemed. This is only an observation though.

You might want to check out this feature request in regards to multiple VPP tokens and app distribution. Device based distribution does make it a bit easier, and if this feature could be implemented (doesn't seem like it would need anything on Apple's end) it would make your issue a lot easier: https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/feature-requests/4167/device-based-vpp-assignment-from-multiple-vpp-accounts-for-the-same-app

[Sandy]

@jbourdon, yes we did our migration very early in the process and maybe they have fixed some issues. This was the case when we migrated:

.....came from VPP for education Support:
*D) The Conversion process goes by order, so if a spreadsheet was split up and different Apple IDs converted it, that spreadsheet will most likely not be converted as having been flagged as not redeemed purely with Apple Configurator.
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/10490/any-actual-experience-migrating-vpp-from-codes-to-managed-distribution

We have vpp accounts for all 8 schools and a few others, and purchases go back to 3/2011. We were able to recover some licenses that Apple had deemed non-migratable due to above, by opening a case.
If we had spreadsheets where teachers had redeemed some codes and the rest of the sheet was unredeemed they skipped them.
Those sheets are still sitting in the accounts as codes with purchase dates going back to 2012-13.
My best advice is to know what you have!

[Retrac]

I just re-read @Sandy first post "They will not convert codes that were purchased outside of VPP". So this would mean that my standard iTunes account that purchased a load of content before VPP was invented cannot be migrated to a managed license?

Could this old iTunes account be promoted to a VPP account and then all of the redemption codes associated with it be migrated to distribution versions in one go?

[Sandy]

My guess is not, but for these types of questions you should go directly to Apple Support since often the rules change :)