The Vref+ input (which is sometimes bonded to same pin as VDDA) has different purpose to the Vrefint internal voltage reference.
The range of ADC is always between zero and Vref+ (you always get 0xFFF if you measure Vref+). This is hard wired, it is how the ADC is built.
The internal voltage reference is an internal voltage source of a known value. If the Vref+ value can be unknown, you can measure the known value of Vrefint to calculate the conversion factor of the ADC (I.E. how many millivolts is one bit, or what voltage corresponds to 0xFFF).
If you want to use external voltage reference for this purpose instead, you just connect it to the ADC input and treat it as any other analog input you want to measure.