When you purchase content from the VPP store for your school, you can distribute your purchases directly to your users using User Assignment only. This means that an Apple ID will be required on each device to distribute books.
What Will You Learn?
- How to configure books
- Best practices
Distributing VPP Store Books via User Assignment
Accessing the Content Menu
- Login: Log into your Mobile Guardian Dashboard.
- Navigate to Content: On the left-hand side navigation, click on the Content menu item.
Managing VPP Books
- Book Management: You will be directed to the Book Management screen by default. Here you will see the VPP details and a list of the books associated with your VPP account.
- Edit Book Settings: On the right-hand side of the page, click on the Edit icon.
Configuring Book Settings
- Settings Tab: Select the Settings tab to navigate to where we will be applying tags. In the settings window, you will have the option to assign to home-owned or school-owned devices or use Tags for "Auto-Install" or "Self-Install".
- Save Changes: Once you have added the necessary configuration to the settings tab, scroll down and select Save Changes.
#Note: Between “Auto-install Settings” and “Self-Install Settings” you should only use one set of settings at a time. Using both sets of settings simultaneously may result in conflicting installations.
Syncing VPP Account
- Sync VPP Account: Navigate back to Book Management by selecting Books from the left menu under Content. Click on Sync VPP account.
Best Practices
- Check VPP Association: On the first sync, check if the device has been associated with a VPP account. If it hasn’t, a VPP invite request will be sent to the device. The book status on the dashboard will reflect as “VPP account not associated yet. Current status is Registered”.
- VPP Invite: If successful, the VPP invite will display, allowing the user to sign in using their Apple ID. It is important NOT to use the same Apple ID as was used to set up your VPP account.
- Account Association: Once this has been completed, a message from Apple will confirm that the account has been associated.
- Subsequent Syncs: Once the account is associated, subsequent sync requests will push the VPP book to the device and make it available via iBooks if the book is available for the device region (a book available in the US VPP book store may not be available for a device in the UK).
- iBooks Installation: The iBooks application will be installed on the device if it is not already available and if the installation of applications has not been disallowed by restrictions on the device (with the release of iOS 8, it became an integrated app).
Well done! You have now learned about VPP books and how to apply books to devices.
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Thanks for reading! 🙂