VPP - Codes vs Token ? Can you do both ?

[rcorbin]

We have been using VPP for some time now, but have only used the downloadable codes thus far. We buy iOS apps via the VPP site, download the codes and then use those with Configurator. Thinking about expanding some of the VPP stuff to Mac OS and started to look at downloading the token via the VPP site to put into the JSS. Is anyone using both codes and tokens ? I guess the VPP codes have already been redeemed so nothing really changes there. I think there is some tool that can convert them to tokens, but for the Configurator side of things the codes seem to work fine.

[adamcodega]

I have not done this myself but I'm taking an educated guess as it's been a whole hour since your original post.

I'm going to say yes, and here's why. The Apple VPP store always gives you an option of codes or managed distribution when you buy an app. Codes are handled via Apple Configurator and managed distribution via your MDM, your JSS. So, since nothing in JSS prevents you from using codes you should be fine.

[rcorbin]

That's what I'm figuring @adamcodega. I just thought I would check to see if anyone knew of any gotchas. Was curious to know how many have been doing both.

[adamcodega]

I'd like to hear from someone who's transitioned to VPP2..

You could throw a real interesting puzzler to us, like you want to use codes to deploy an app to half your users and managed distribution to deploy it to the other half. :-D

[rcorbin]

Kinda what I'm thinking @adamcodega....

[Sandy]

We have so far converted two of our 8 VPP accounts to managed licensing.
There is no "preview" of how many codes would convert, and it is an all or nothing, no going back process.
The broad message is that any codes that were redeemed through Apple Configurator would convert to managed licenses, but the fine print is that any individual purchase (Spreadsheet) that was not 100% redeemed through Configurator would be negated from the conversion. this left us in a severe deficit, as we had many thousands of codes that were purchased when we HAD to sync with iTunes, and also we had never distinguished between teacher and student codes on those old purchases. It took many weeks but Apple did finally give us credit for many of those lost codes....

Once you convert your vpp account to managed licenses, going forward you can make each purchase either codes or managed licenses. We have 800 students all with their own Apple IDs and they get their paid apps through managed licensing. It was rough in September for the initial roll out but since then it all is working quite well, both the Apple and the JAMF side of things :)
The vpp accounts themselves I find to be VERY unwieldy, since refunded codes stay in there and look like good codes, and there's no way to "Mark" any purchases in the portal to help manage things....

This fall we will start distributing teacher codes using vpp though the JSS (Previously we just emailed each teacher their codes...)
I was advised not to mix "code to device" with "license to user" on student devices, not sure if this is the case still but we are not mixing them, using ONLY managed licensing on students, and will ONLY use codes (non-retrievable) for staff.
We will still have carts for some purposes, and are currently debating whether we can put these into DEP and distribute all these apps OTA, or whether we need to keep the Apple Configurator model alive for these. The carts TEND to require more apps as they are shared across multiple grades. If we go DEP we would need to create unique institutional Apple IDs for each device in order to distribute licenses... so either method has some overhead.
Hope this is helpful :)
Sandy

[rcorbin]

Thanks for the reply @sandyh ! Lots of great information there. I'm not quite sure what you mean about converting my VPP account. Right now if I got to order an item on VPP it gives me the choice under the header of "Distribution Type". I can then either pick "Redeemable Codes" or "Mananged Distribution.

I was just reading through this tech note http://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202863 and I'm guessing what you mean is putting in a request to convert all my existing codes over to tokes. It sounds like you put in the request and it's an all or nothing deal.

But I'm guessing that from this point I could choose to leave all those items as codes and then pick and choose as I order from here forward. Roger

[Sandy]

Hi Roger,
yes, you can just go forward with your vpp accounts as is. We chose to convert as we had a very large existing investment.
If you don't have to do this, that is good!

[CairoJXP]

You may have gotten this all figured out at this point, but just in case, I'll put in what I know since I've done a lot with VPP here and such. As Sandy mentioned, you can convert current licenses/codes to become managed distribution, or just from here on out, when you purchase them, choose the managed distribution option.

You'll definitely need an apple token to use the VPP system with the managed licenses. Depending how you want the apps to distribute, you have to set up your groups and VPP assignments one way or another. I just completely wiped what I'd done and re-did everything so I can push out the paid apps and have them auto-install and auto-uninstall.

All we're doing is tied to DEP as well. We do have upper school students that register with JSS OTA vs. pre-stage like with DEP devices. So depending where you are and what you're doing, I'm happy to get more detailed!