Apple Business Manager — Distribution Method for enterprise applications

Apple offers 3 ways to distribute your application to your target audiences.Target audience means who finally gonna use your application. Three different Platforms are :

1. Public App Store

2. Enterprise Distribution

3. Apple Business Manager

In this blog we will cover Apple business manager approach only . We will talk and learn what it is and will also discuss some suggestions that we can follow during an application release on ABM.

What is required for ABM?

Apple Developer Account ($99 Subscription per year)

Apple business Manager account, don't worry its free of cost .

First step

simply create an application on iTunes Connect

Go to its pricing and availability section

Scroll down to “App Distribution Methods”

And select “Private” options Then you have to type in the Organization ID and organisation name.

Organisation ID and name? what is that ?

This is where the Business Manager Program takes place. You have to enroll into the Apple Business Manager Program. This process may take up to 8-10 days. After the approval, you will have the ID and the organisation name that you need above.

What is Next ?

Now you need to upload an application on App Store Connect. then need to get the approval from the Apple review to distribute our application. application needs to be published privately (as a Custom App) and reviewers know it.

Suggestion

You can mention in “App review information” that “This application will be released on Apple Business Manager for a dedicated organisation.

So it is unlikely for you to get a rejection.

is it done ?

No, When the application gets approved, you need to login to your Business Manager account.

Now from the dashboard’s left menu go to the custom app section. Your application now should be visible as a purchasable custom app.

Finally here you have two options to distribute selected application. First is “Managed Licences” and another one is “Redemption of codes”Choose your licence type, select your assigned to and after filling the required number of licences click on the GET button.

A download link with the details of your purchase will appear below just like in the example image above. The downloadable content is an .xlsx document which holds your redemption codes.

Note: one redemption code will work for one apple ID after that it will no longer be valid.

One more thing, MDM configuration

To configure MDM server in Apple business Manager click on settings from left menu, and choose last option to setup MDM server for more details you can visit learn more section from same page.