Intune
Purpose
This project will follow this YouTube series in a green field setup to help backfill knowledge gaps in Intune as it’s a product I’ve used on an “as needed” basis. Previous experience was incredibly hands-off on employee systems as those employees were old-hat at any/everything PC related. Combine that with legitimate needs for local admin rights and there wasn’t a huge need for management via MDM. The majority of my current experience is around conditional access rules and minor configuration POIs for security and PCI compliance.
The general idea is to start with that Reboot playlist and then backtrack through some of the more recent items. It’s a bit of a backwards approach, however, the entire reason for the reboot is an incredibly valid one for not starting from their first videos - so much has changed they’re no longer relevant.
Notes will not be taken for every process, step, etc. in the videos - I’m not regurgitating their content here. Instead, call outs around special items, points of interest, etc. will be documented in separate sections below. Any repetitive tasks should be automated as well for future reference.
Company Branding
- Legal disclaimers and notices are needed
- Company branding around images, custom CSS on the login pages, etc.
License By Group
A licensing strategy that helps standardize user licensing and provisioning.
- Establish licensing standards
- E1 + P2
- E3 + E5 Security
- etc.
- Create group objects and license them according to the licensing standards
- Assign users to the appropriate license group
- It can also be assigned to pre-existing groups
- IMO I would keep this separate as group memberships can become really entwined. Theoretically conflicts would come up when a user is added to the licensed HR group but they’re already a member of the licensed CLevel group.
- Solve by fencing of security, license, feature, etc. groups
User Management
Technically managed over in the Entra ID portal but it was created while going through the Intune items - so it wound up here.
User management, especially around onboarding and offboarding, leaves a lot of room for human error when performed manually. Luckily, we have PowerShell scripts and their new Workflows.
User Scripts
Identity Workflows
Cobbled together Powershell scripts may be a thing of the past if you fork over the money for the Microsoft Entra ID Governance
licenses. Looks like Intune grew up and there are now different management tiers with only the top one allowing access to their workflows.
MacOS Enrollment
Unfortunately, a business ID is required to complete these steps. This will be something to pursue in detail at a future date.
- A very emphatic, “Ah!” around default enrollment restrictions
- Default policy is assigned to all devices by default
- User policies are then built on top of the default policy
- Changing registration for personal devices to block can impact the ability to register devices
- A separate video specifically around device enrollment will be done around
- Restriction policies can be specified per type with additional policies layered on top of the default that cover different scopes
- Prod settings around MDM and MAM called out
Android Provisioning
Managed Google Play
Android is apparently the most problematic registration/provisioning. First prerequisite is the managed play store.
The primary doc for adding apps is, IMO, required reading for anyone spending any time managing these deployments. Especially familiarizing on the app types table, update authority (automatic or manual where you must update it) and the prerequisites for users to use the app.
- Intune portal > Devices > Android > Android Enrollment > Managed Google Play
- Launch and sign in with a Google account
- Cannot use G-Suite accounts (or at least there are restrictions covered later)
- Apps can be added/managed once the tenant is associated with the Google Account
- Navigate to Intune Portal > Apps > Android and add the “Managed Google Play” app type
- Other store apps, LOBs, Enterprise, etc. can be added via this process and providing the APK file(s)
- Find the app, select it, and sync
Corporate Owned - Fully Managed
The first scenario are devices entirely owned by the company for use by a single user. Intune admins manage everything on the device and have complete control. Docs are here.
The shtick with Corporate Owned, fully managed is that admins must install and administer all apps on the device unless they explicitly modify policy to allow users access to the Play Store.
- Devices > Enrollment > Android Tab > Corporate-owned, fully managed user devices
- On the android device:
- Tap on the screen five times to bring up the camera and scan the QR code
- The device now belongs to the corporation
- Zero-touch enrollment skips this process
- Be sure that all users understand the level of visibility corporate has (everything)
- Login at the prompt and it will update and install apps automatically
- Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the registration process