Multiple Apps in One VPP Assignment

bosstone75
New Contributor III

We have some iPads that we previously managed in a somewhat unique way. They were trial iPads that would go out for 6 weeks and then come back to us to be redeployed to another user.

Because of this and our lack of desire to have to go into multiple VPP Assignments that are based off of App names to assign each app (that's our typical way of doing this), we instead have created a VPP assignment for each iPad and within that one VPP assignment, we would assign multiple apps.

That way, when the iPad came back, we could go into that one assignment and uncheck all of the apps to get our licenses back.

Is this a method that we should expect to work?

Or is there another way to get at this same goal of being able to quickly remove many different apps from an iPad when it comes back to us? What other info do you need to help?

4 REPLIES 4

timlings
Contributor

That should work – I manage our VPP assignments sometimes based off App names, and sometimes based on groups of devices, depending on what I want to do.

When you remove apps from a VPP assignment, you get the licences back straight away, but the apps won't uninstall for a 'grace period' of 30 days.

If you want apps themselves to be uninstalled, this would have to be managed under 'Apps' in 'Mobile Devices'. You could probably make this work with one click by using groups, e.g. each app would be scoped to the group 'iPad loaner 1', 'iPad loaner 2' etc., and then you would manually remove the returned device from its group and then all the apps would uninstall.

bosstone75
New Contributor III

Thanks!

Nazareth
New Contributor

Its seems that unchecking all the apps to reclaim licenses might not be the most efficient way or managing the licenses.
Apps can be assigned via groups, departments, locations etc
So you could generate a static groups called for example Chemistry, Physics, English etc
Devices are added or removed from these groups depending on which apps they need
Apps are scoped to these groups according to whats needed

To remove the chemistry apps, remove the device from that static group and the app license will be reclaimed.

Same happens with User VPP assignments except you can use static user groups.
You don't have to go down that path of appleIDs and individual users after the iOS9 change. If you are looking at redesigning how you are setting it up Id avoid it if possible.

Nazareth
New Contributor

Looks like I just repeated what timlings said :)