Volume Purchasing Integration

Jamf Pro's volume purchasing integration syncs with Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager to automatically populate your apps and books in Jamf Pro for managed distribution to devices or users.

In Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, the Apps and Books section provides a central place to purchase content in volume. All purchased content is associated with a location-based service token. A default location is included, but you can create multiple locations to help you manage your content by office location, departments, or budget holder.

In Jamf Pro, each location token is uploaded to establish volume content syncing and make your apps and books are available for managed distribution. You can also view and search app information, such as the amount of used and available licenses for paid apps.

Volume Purchase Location Considerations

Consider the following when adding locations to volume purchasing in Jamf Pro:

  • To avoid issues with content scoping and renewal dates, it is recommended that you do not configure multiple locations for the same distribution content.

  • Each service token for the specific distributed content should only be allocated once. For example, if the service token you want to upload already exists in Apple's Profile Manager, delete the service token from Apple's Profile Manager before uploading it to Jamf Pro. This limitation includes a single server instance.

  • If you upload a new token file to renew distributed content licenses, it is recommended that you do not delete the expired location from Jamf Pro before uploading the new server token file.

  • If you configured a location for your distributed content licenses and later integrated your environment with Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, it is recommended that you do not add a separate location for these licenses.

    Use the Renew Service Token button on the location Details tab to upload the new token (.vpptoken) that you acquired from Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager. This will allow Location to display for your Apple School Manager token in Jamf Pro. When prompted, reclaim the service token to use it with your Jamf Pro instance.
 For information on how to obtain the token file, see the following Apple documentation:

    Note:

    It is recommended that you only use one Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager account to integrate with volume purchasing. Using more than one account makes it difficult to isolate the account causing the issues when troubleshooting.

  • Deleting a location removes the instance from Jamf Pro but does not delete the settings in Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager.

Adding a Volume Purchasing Location to Jamf Pro

To distribute paid apps and books purchased in volume, you must upload one or more location-based tokens to Jamf Pro.

You also choose the country associated with the location and can specify that all purchased content is populated in the app and eBook catalogs.

  1. In Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, follow these steps:
    1. Click on your account name in the lower-left corner, and then choose Preferences from the pop-up menu.
    2. Click Payments and Billing.
    3. Under the Apps and Books tab, click on the correct server location token.

      The token downloads to the Downloads folder on your computer.

  2. In Jamf Pro, click Settings in the top-right corner of the page.
  3. In the Global Management section, click Volume Purchasing .
  4. Click New .
  5. Enter a display name for the location.
    Note:

    If you configure email notifications for the location, this name displays in the email body.

  6. Click Upload Service Token and upload the service token (.vpptoken) for the location.
    Important:

    Each service token should only exist in one location at a time. If the service token you want to upload already exists in Apple's Profile Manager, delete the service token from Apple's Profile Manager before uploading it to Jamf Pro.

  7. Choose the country that is associated with the account.
  8. (Optional) Select Automatically Populate Purchased Content if you want content purchased in volume to be populated in the app and eBook catalogs.
  9. (Optional) Select Notify users when an app is no longer assigned to them if you want to send a notification to users when an app is revoked.
  10. (Optional) If your environment integrates with Apple School Manager and you do not want users with Managed Apple IDs to receive an invitation or get prompted to register with volume purchasing, select Automatically re-run policy on failure.
    Note: To automatically register users that have Managed Apple IDs, yout must create a Volume Purchasing invitation that includes the users in the scope, and additionally configure the invitation to automatically register included users. For more information, see User-Assigned Volume Purchasing Registration.
  11. Click Save .

Adding Volume Purchasing Notifications

To make the managed distribution content management more efficient, you can enable a volume purchasing notification. This allows Jamf Pro to send you a daily email after the predefined condition is triggered. You can also specify the recipients to send the notification to. To properly configure a notification, at least one location must exist in Jamf Pro, and you must be logged in with a Jamf Pro user account that has full access or site access and an email address configured.

Requirements

To add volume purchasing notifications, you need:

  • An SMTP server set up in Jamf Pro (For more information, see SMTP Server Integration.)

  • At least one location configured in Jamf Pro

  • Email notifications enabled for Jamf Pro user accounts (For more information, see Email Notifications.)

  1. In Jamf Pro, click Settings in the top-right corner of the page.
  2. In the Global Management section, click Volume Purchasing .
  3. Click Notifications.
  4. Click New .
  5. Use the New Volume Purchasing Subscription pane to configure the settings for the notification, including the display name, the trigger, and tokens that you want to monitor.
    Note:

    Jamf Pro users with the Volume Purchasing Admin Accounts privilege that have site access are allowed to manage notifications in the context of the site.

  6. Click the Scope tab and configure the scope of the notification by adding recipients:
    1. Click Add to add recipients of the notification. You can select the existing Jamf Pro user accounts, or manually add external recipients that are not registered in Jamf Pro.
    2. Click Done in the top-right corner of the pane.
  7. Click Save.

After adding a volume purchasing notification, you must enable it.