Paid App Distribution Issues

brandtc
New Contributor II

*Note - the following is only concerned with managed app distribution through the app store by way of VPP Assignments in JAMF, not self service apps, these are working fine.

I have been working with my managed app distribution for a while, but have ran into some issues. User accounts have been created, VPP invitations send and accepted, and then when I go to assign manged apps to users, sometimes it will show up in their App Store purchased history, and some times it doesn't. After testing variables, I have seen that it is not an iOS version issue or format issue (iphone vs ipad vs ipad mini) as I have setup the device under different accounts and it shows up on one, but not the other. Clearly, these apps are not getting associated with the Apple ID, though the problem seems intermittent. In addition, I have noted that on occasion, but not always, if I go back to the assigned app for that user, uncheck it, and then save, then go back in and edit it, and add the license back to that user it will now show up under App Store > Purchased. Again, this is hit or miss. Has anyone ran into this issue, are there any steps to solve the issue, or at the very least work around it?

8 REPLIES 8

Nick_Gooch
Contributor III

We have run into that as well, usually after a day all the apps show up in the purchased section. I have tested with multiple devices signed into the same apple id and some get all the apps right away in purchased some don't show up for a few hours. So that leads me to believe it is something on Apples end. The devices that they don't show up if we restart the iPad sometimes that helps. Sometimes nothing but waiting helps. I've also noticed that even if I download an app from the app store on an iPad with issues it doesn't show up in purchased either.

Sandy
Valued Contributor II

We have seen this as well. We had a small number of students who had also accepted the invitation, but scoped paid apps never show up. We had one student where 1 app from that vpp account showed up but the other 2 from SAME cpp account did not.
When I used a different VPP account to scope same apps, they showed up immediately, which showed that all other moving parts were functional.
I wonder if my "Available licenses" number is accurate. We migrated codes to managed licenses in two vpp accounts. and are not AT the upper limit, but close.More testing needed.

cdenesha
Valued Contributor II

@Sandy

I wonder if my "Available licenses" number is accurate. We migrated codes to managed licenses in two vpp accounts. and are not AT the upper limit, but close.More testing needed.

From what I understand, they gave you a license for every unredeemed code. So probably not it..

Nick_Gooch
Contributor III

In our situation we have plenty of available licenses, 100's for some apps.

pmessias
New Contributor

We have been having the same problem too recently. One VPP account seems to work fine, the other has only succeeded in pushing licenses to a handful (out of hundreds).

brandtc
New Contributor II

Thanks for your responses so far. I have waited a couple days, and on some of the accounts, the apps come in eventually; others, they never show up. Going to keep playing with it, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Nick_Gooch
Contributor III

For some users updating to the most current iOS gets the apps to show up right after the update. Especially if they were on 7 still. Not saying 8.0.2 users don't have the issue still because some do. But users on 7 that don't have any apps in purchase that update to 8.0.2 seem to get the apps to show up right after the update.

Sandy
Valued Contributor II

Hi,
Fresh from the JNUC, I can tell you there were some lively conversations around this topic and all things VPP, DEP and Under 13 Apple IDs.

With regards the this specific issue: Apps not showing up in the Purchased Tab despite all other steps being completed
Thanks especially to Leigh Ciancanelli from North Raleigh Christian Academy for this:

  1. Remove your student User from all VPP App Scoping (We do this by adding the student to a static group which is used for students who have left the district, and every App Assignment has this static group as an Exclusion)

  2. Locate the student's device, and delete then from the device: User and Location (Make note of device as you'll be adding it back in)

  3. Delete your User from Users, which will by default remove student from the exclusion group, and from any VPP invitations.

  4. Re-add the student to their device, and presuming you're scoping with LDAP< this should regenerate a new User Record, as well as any scoped Invitations. Student accepts new invitations and Apps arrive in the "Purchased" tab in the App Store.

As for my post above, there were at least 1-2 other districts who have seen a similar situation where they appear to hit a "False Ceiling" in Managed App Distribution: i.e. the number of licenses which appear in the Total, is falsely higher than what can be distributed. Once additional licenses are purchased, they go out, but the gap between total and in use never gets closer than this "False Ceiling".

Our Devices (iPad 2s in their third year of use) are for the most part still at 7.1.2. We are just now starting to allow 8.1 on a slow roll to see how it goes, but we redeployed the whole 800+ at 7.1.2, and so that was not a factor for us