Apple VPP, or Volume Purchase Program, is a service provided by Apple that allows businesses and educational institutions to purchase macOS and iOS apps and books in volume and distribute them to their users. The program is designed to support the mass deployment of apps and books, making it much easier for organizations to manage and control the distribution of these resources.
Important Notice on Managed Apple IDs
For VPP to work correctly on Swif:
Managed Apple ID
The employee assigned to each device must have a Managed Apple ID entered in the Managed Apple ID field.
You can only assign VPP apps to devices (or device groups) whose assigned employee has a Managed Apple ID.
In other words, every device needs a device owner, and the device owner must have a Managed Apple ID in their employee record in Swif.ai to enable VPP functionality.
Update the Managed Apple ID to Swif.ai
To update the Managed Apple ID on an employee, there are 2 ways:
Manual:
Bulk CSV update
If the employee record is missing Apple Managed ID, we will confirm it again during the VPP assignment step.
Here's how Apple VPP works:
Purchase:
The organization can buy apps and books in volume through the VPP store. They can search for specific apps or books and purchase them in the quantities they need.
Distribution:
After purchasing, the organization can distribute the apps and books to their users. They can either assign the apps and books directly to their users' Apple IDs or distribute them via a Swif's Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution.
Management:
The organization can also keep track of all the apps and books they've purchased and see how many licenses they have left. If an app is no longer needed, they can revoke and reassign it to another user.
Here's how to connect Apple VPP to Swif:
Download the VPP server token
Go to Apple Business Manager and log in.
Click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, click Preferences, then choose Payments & Billing.
Select Apps and Books and scroll down to ‘Content Tokens’.
Click on the Download button next to your required content token.
Configure VPP account settings
Log in to your Swif
Navigate to Inventory > Applications
Click on the Add Application button.
Enter an Account Name and upload the VPP token file that you downloaded earlier.
Click Save.
Import applications
Once applications are imported, you can click Install to install applications to devices or groups.
For how to install VPP apps, you can find more details at "Swif’s Support for Apple Business Manager (ABM) VPP App Installation".