Migrate to Apple Business Manager, or not?

[mkoss]

Hello, we are currently using Apple DEP and VPP in our on-premise environment of AW UEM 9.7.0.20. Every time that I login to DEP I am always asked to upgrade to ABM, but I have held off on this after reading others have issues with synching afterwards.

Currently we have one account that we use for DEP and VPP, but the whole purpose of wanting to upgrade to ABM was the ease of adding additional VPP accounts. What we are looking to do is to allow some of our sites to purchase paid apps to be deployed to their devices. My thoughts was to create separate OG's and associate the newly created VPP accounts for the OGs. Should I proceed with upgrading to ABM, or create separate VPP accounts and upload these tokens to the separate OGs?

I have contacted VMware Support, as well as Apple, many times and I can't really seem to get an answer on what is the recommended process of going to Apple Business Manager. From what I have read, the purchasing VPP account needs to be migrated to a location. After the migration has completed, does the VPP token need to be updated in the console?

[mkoss]

So, currently we have one Apple ID associated with VPP and DEP in our MDM environment. My concern is that I have seen where some reported issues with DEP not linking devices as it should. Has anyone else had this issue?

[chengtmskcc]

Matt, you should not experience any issue with your setup since you use the same account for both DEP and VPP. That's pretty straight forward. it gets complicated if you have more than 1 existing VPP accounts and wish to merge the two together.

[JocelynB]

We use Apple School Manager (I've heard it's identical to ABM) and haven't had any problems. Yes, the VPP token must be uploaded to the console. I haven't had any issue with syncing devices and purchases, but I do find myself bouncing back and forth between ASM and AW to manage the devices.

[ChaiseCooperCha]

The migration is necessary. Apple is going to pester you again and again until you do go to ABM. It is very, very simple though and doesn't cause any sort of downtime.

[PeterZielke]

Is Volume Purchase Program for Business customers still valid are do we have to move to Apple Business manager by a certain date?

[chengtmskcc]

Peter, from my conversation with Apple support there's no definitive deadline when the VPP portal will be decommissioned. However, moving both DEP and VPP to ABM will unify management under one portal. If you have multiple MDM environments, you can even transfer licenses from one location to another which wasn't possible before. I'm loving it so far!

[RichB2u2]

The conversion can go smoothly so after clicking ' Get Started'  under Apps & Books you should be able to download the ABM token (not VPP) and import that into WS1 (formerly AirWatch). WS1 will associate all the apps to the new location based token licenses. This assumes all licenses get revoked properly from all devices. We have had some of our sites do this conversion and not all licenses were transferred. Using Configurator on a Mac you can log into that Apple ID, from the Window menu select ' VPP Assignments'  and then select all of the licenses that have not been revoked and revoke them all.

We have also had sites where the import of the new ASM token errors out saying ' This token is not an update to the previous one'  in which case it has to be deleted from the console, removing all apps on devices associated, then import the new token and re-configure all apps!

The biggest advantage of the conversion in my mind is the ability to transfer licenses between locations.

[chengtmskcc]

I totally agree with Rich about transferring licenses from one location to another. Save both time and money.

[cloudmaster2017]

We moved over and have had no issues and like the options/interface better.

[chengtmskcc]

Rich,

' We have also had sites where the import of the new ASM token errors out saying ' This token is not an update to the previous one'  in which case it has to be deleted from the console, removing all apps on devices associated, then import the new token and re-configure all apps!'

When you say to delete the token from the console, are you saying to ' clear'  in the console?

Tom

[RichB2u2]

Yes, in my on-premise 1902 it has ' Save, Renew, and Clear'  as the choices so Clear removes it from the console for that OG. The apps start disappearing from the iPads until replaced with the same app when re-configured. The apps disappear from the console and then re-appear when the new token is imported. The apps all have to be changed to device-based licenses and pushed to the previously configured assignment groups so having screenshots of that beforehand helps. Any app that has data stored locally will have that data removed and replaced so make sure the users have backed up the data ahead of time. One of those apps is Notability which can be backed up by the user but will store data locally in the app. If it is not backed up to the cloud somewhere the user's data is lost.

[chengtmskcc]

This would be bad as we have at least one app that has custom configuration and re-pushing will require the users to re-configure them manually.

[BrendanTate]

Hi, i'm in this same position now - we have already migrated DEP to ABM painlessly but are now having issues with VPP now that has migrated.

We use a single apple ID for both DEP and VPP.

The SToken is still pointing to the legacy VPP portal - We have migrated all the licences over to ABM from the legacy.

Is it just a case of clearing the token and downloading the Location based token to replace it - Will this revoke the licences already issued or not as they've migrated over to ABM?

I don't want to be in a position where the apps are removed and re-installed as that would cause us problems with custom configuration as per Thomas C.

Any advice?

[chengtmskcc]

Brendan, perhaps the below might help?

https://techiecheng.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/steps-to-upgrade-from-apple-dep-and-vpp-to-apple-busine...

[PeterZielke]

I completed the Apple Bus manger upgrade last week mainly using Thomas C's instructions. Many Thanks!
We have only 1 account for VPP and DEP so no Issues so far

[chengtmskcc]

So glad to hear it helps Peter!