TP935488 - Deploying eBooks with JAMF – Information Support Support Services

Classes that require students to have ebooks are distributed through JAMF. eBooks are purchased via Apple School Manager, and those purchases/licensing is distributed through JAMF.

There are two scenarios to consider. If eBooks are already set up then it's a matter of maintenance and distribution. If eBooks are not set up, see JAMF’s documentation on Deploying eBooks in Jamf Pro.

We will cover both methods in this technical procedure. Being that eBooks are currently set up, we will start with maintenance and distribution before covering how to create a new eBook deployment.

Renewing VPP (Volume Purchasing Program) Token

JAMF will notify you when the VPP token is expiring. The token expires every year. When this happens log into https://school.apple.com/ with your administrator account. (The token can be renewed by any Blake school Apple ID)
Click on your Admin account in the lower left corner, and choose “Preferences”
Choose “Payments and Billing” and scroll down to the section that says “Content Tokens”
There will be several Content Tokens. The only ones that are used are The Blake School and Northrop. Click download, to the right, of the Content Token to begin downloading the .vpptoken file

(The “Blake School” Content Token is ONLY for MacOS, iOS and tvOS apps. Ebook licenses will not work if this is the Content Token that uploads into JAMF) If you need to distribute ebooks, either pick Northrop or see JAMF's documentation on deploying ebooks.

Updating User Smart Groups

Smart Groups in JAMF help to distribute specific eBooks to specific grades. As each grade ascends to the next, the following school year, we need to update the Smart Groups in JAMF to reflect these changes. It’s important to make sure that the Smart User Group is configured correctly, as User Group information is used in a later step.

Login to JAMF Pro https://jss.blakeschool.org:8443/
On the left hand column, choose “Users”, then choose “Smart Users Groups”
Edit the Smart User Groups for each grade listed. Start with 9th Grade and towards 12th Grade. 9th and 10th Grade are the most important as these grades, currently, are the ones heavily assigned eBooks. Select “Class of 20XX - 9th Grade” Smart User Group.
Below the name of the Smart User Group, make sure that “Smart Group” is selected. (This is the default) Click “Edit” in the lower right corner.
Click into the “Display Name” field and change the “Grade” (Highlighted in Green) to reflect the current grade of the graduating year. For example “Class of 20XX - 8th Grade” would change to 9th Grade. Do this for each of the 10th, 11th, and 12th Grade Smart User Group. (DO NOT change anything within the “Criteria” options.) Click “Save” in the lower right corner when correct changes are made.

Exporting User Groups

Now that all the grades Smart User Groups are updated, a .csv file needs to be exported and downloaded. The information contained with the .csv will be needed for the next task.

Choose the Smart User Group you want to export. (more often than not, it’ll be the 9th Grade User Group). Then click “View” in the lower right corner.
In the lower right corner, choose “Export”
The next screen will offer options on how you’d like to export users. Choose Comma-Separated Values (.csv) and then Click "Next"
A .csv will download and save to your computer. Verify that the .csv file downloaded successfully.

MUT (Mass Upload Tool)

The MUT is a macOS application written in Swift, which allows Jamf admins to make mass updates to attributes (such as username, asset tag, or extension attribute) of their devices and users in Jamf.

Blake ISS uses MUT to import users' Managed Apple ID into their corresponding user record in JAMF Pro. Making sure each user has a Managed Apple ID displayed in their user record ensures that the license for eBooks is properly assigned to each user. This part is the most crucial.

Open MUT.app from your computer. If you don’t have it you can download it from Github.
Enter in your JAMF PRO web URL, username and password and click “Log In”
After logging in with your JAMF credentials. Down near the bottom, choose “Download CSV Templates”, choose a file destination to save it to, and click “Save” (You can use the same template over and over again. It is not required to redownload a new template every time.)
Locate the .zip file you saved and uncompress the .zip. Inside the MUT Template folder open the UserTemplate.csv
You can use Numbers, Excel, Google Sheets, whatever spreadsheet Application you’re most comfortable with. The Application doesn't matter, but the formatting of the spreadsheet does.
With the UserTemplate open, locate the saved .csv of the Smart User Group that was exported, and open it.
From the Smart User Group Spreadsheet, (downloaded from JAMF PRO) copy all the names in the “Username” column. Paste all the names into the “Current Username” column of the MUT User Template.
Next, from the Smart User Group Spreadsheet, copy all the emails in the “Email Address” column. Paste all the email addresses into the “Managed Apple ID” column of the MUT User Template.
It’s important to make sure that in the MUT User Template that the users listed in the “Current Username” column match with their email addresses in the “Managed Apple ID” column. (DO NOT delete the column headers in the MUT User Template)
The MUT User Template should look something like this.
Whatever Spreadsheet Application you’re using, export the spreadsheet as a .csv file. Give it a good name. For example “Biology ebooks 20XX-20XX” and save it to your computer that can be easily found.
Go back to or reopen MUT (Mass Update Tool). In the lower right corner, select “Browse for Filled Out CSV”
Locate the file you saved in STEP 11 and choose “Open”
A final window will appear. This asks for confirmation of the changes before being uploading to JAMF. The column on the left is scrollable. It’s good practice to select a username at the top, middle, and bottom of the list. For each of the three entries, make sure to check that “Current Username” and “Managed Apple ID” are the only value changing, and that they reflect the correct information. The rest should state “(unchanged)”. Once positive that everything looks good, click “Submit” at the bottom
MUT will then upload all changes to JAMF PRO. Being that only “Current Username” and “Managed Apple ID” were used. The Managed Apple ID will now be the user's email address and will appear within the user’s record in JAMF PRO.

Verify that Ebooks are working correctly

Once the above tasks are completed, it's important to make sure the user record shows an associated Apple ID.

Login to JAMF Pro https://jss.blakeschool.org:8443/
On the left hand column, choose “Users”, then choose “Smart Users Groups”
Select the 9th Grade Class that you edited earlier in this procedure. (At this time eBooks are only distributed to the 9th grade class, or new to blake students in 10th grade)
In the lower right corner, choose “View”
Once you click “View” you should get a list of users currently in the grade you selected. It's recommended to pick a name from the top, middle, and bottom of the list.
Each user you choose, click their name and in the “General” Section. (should be selected by default) that the users correct email appears “Managed Apple ID”
Another good verification is to check along the left hand column, and under “US VPP - (for ebook’s Only) that content is assigned – it means the scoping of eBooks is successful.

Additional Consideration

Do consider that new to Blake 9th and 10th graders that enroll after the school year starts will need to have a Managed Apple ID associated with their JAMF user account. The process should start with Mass-Upload Tool (MUT) as it is typically done on a one by one basis.