Learn Intune Beginners Guide MDM MAM MIM | EndPoint Manager

Loads of people requested an Intune starter kit as I have one for SCCM. I think the SCCM  starter kit page was useful for the IT community. Mobile device management is new for most the IT Pros in the device management world.

Latest Intune Training 63 Episodes Of Free Intune Training Endpoint Manager For Device Management Admins

Great Learning for Intune Beginners

SCCM is great, and it will not die as per Microsoft. But, don’t go away from Intune learning. I would strongly recommend going through Intune learning process.

What to Learn Intune? Great Resource Around you!

Patch My PC

(1) LinkedIn Learning Courses for Microsoft Intune,

(2) Learning How to Learn SCCM Intune Azure

(3) Learn Intune Beginners Guide MDM MAM MIM,

(4) Microsoft Intune for SCCM Admins Part 1

Adaptiva

Intune for SCCM Admins

Intune is the modern device management solution from Microsoft. My recommendation to SCCM admin is to start learning Microsoft Intune.

I have a series of posts to explain the difference between SCCM and Intune administration and architecture. Check out those posts:

  1. Microsoft Intune for SCCM Admins Part 1 (the video post here)
  2. Microsoft Intune for SCCM Admins Part 2
  3. Microsoft Intune for SCCM Admins Part 3 (sometime in future ;))

Introduction to Microsoft Intune for Beginners

This post would be useful for Intune newbies. In this post, you will see more details about “Beginners Guide to Learn Intune MDM MAM MIM – Learn Microsoft Intune.”

In this post, I will be concentrating on Intune standalone. I won’t cover SCCM Hybrid/Mixed Intune and Office 365 Intune MDM. In most of the scenarios (for Intune Standalone), no need/very minimal need for on-premises infrastructure.

Intune standalone is the way to go when you want to take the path of modern management. Most of the Intune components are hosted in Microsoft Azure. I’ll keep this post updated with new Intune features.

NOTE! – New Intune Microsoft Device Management portal. More Details https://www.anoopcnair.com/intune-microsoft-device-management-portal/

Intune Very High-Level Architecture Flow 

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management - Learn Microsoft Intune Intune Architecture
Intune Architecture

We already have a Facebook group for Intune Professionals. If you would like to join the Facebook community of Intune Professionals, click here. You can also subscribe to the YouTube channel here, where you have loads of Intune tutorials

Why Learn Microsoft Intune as a Beginner?

When you take a look at the Desktop (43.29%) Vs. Mobile (52.29%) Vs. Tablet (4.42%) Market Share Worldwide for last year, and you could see the mobile devices are leaders.

So, Mobile Device Management is critical, and this is a new world of opportunities for IT Pros like us. From my perspective, Learning Microsoft Intune is essential for SCCM admins.

I don’t think SCCM will go away for another 5-6 years. I know some SCCM 2007 environments are managing more than 40K devices. So, it will take a long time to migrate corporate organizations to modern device management solutions.

But, I also agree that we need to Learn Microsoft Intune Mobile Device Management (MDM), Mobile Application Management (MAM) technologies, etc.  This is why it’s important to learn Microsoft Intune is important for SCCM admins.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) is not a term used only for managing or administrating mobile devices. Rather, MDM also includes the administration of a wide range of new laptops, desktops, etc. For example, with Windows 10, all desktops, and laptops can be managed through the MDM channel.

Why to Learn ? How to Start Learning Intune with a Starter Kit for Newbies - Learn Microsoft Intune
Why Learn Intune?

What is Microsoft Intune and How is it different?

Intune is an enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution from Microsoft. The EMM provider helps to manage mobile devices, network settings, and other mobile services and settings.

Microsoft Intune is nothing but a combination of Device, Application, Information Protection, Endpoint Protection (antivirus software), and Security/Configuration policy management solution (SaaS) facilitated by Microsoft in Cloud.

Additionally, Azure AD has a feature where admins can create a “Conditional Access (CA)” policy to access company resources. This Azure AD CA policy can be combined with Intune compliance policies. Only Intune will provide access to company or corporate resources (corporate email, Share point, etc…). Intune is pure cloud architecture, and it’s fun to Learn Microsoft Intune.

Previously, I mentioned Microsoft Intune as a lighter version of SCCM or ConfigMgr in the cloud. However, I don’t want to make the comparison so simple this time.

Intune architecture is entirely cloud-based and agile.  Get a more detailed idea about Microsoft Intune in the below video. Yes, this video is old and outdated but very well explained.

How to Start Working with Intune as a Beginner

Download the Microsoft EMS step-by-step setup guide from here. This guide will help you get a trial version of Office 365, Azure AD, and Intune subscription.

If you already have an Azure AD (Azure AD premium) subscription, things are very straightforward, as I posted on the blog here. First and foremost, you need to have a strong desire and determination to Learn Microsoft Intune.

If you don’t have an Azure AD subscription, then better to start with an Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) trial account, Azure Free Trial Account, and Office 365 free trial subscription.

The Azure trial account is already created as an EMS trial account. It’s better to make a NEW outlook.com account and get ready with Credit Card details to activate the Azure trial subscription.

Getting a trial version of Azure AD, Office 365, and Intune is a very straightforward process if you have never done this same process with your credit card and mobile number. Azure AD and Office 365 are prerequisites for Intune if you want to test/trial all the features of Intune.

Note:- Intune can be signed up separately as well from here. If you feel you are interested in testing only Intune now, this is the way.

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management - Learn Microsoft Intune

Intune Quick Start Tips

What are the Management Options in Intune?

Intune can manage Mac-OS, Android, iOS, and Windows devices via MDM (Mobile Device Management) channel. I cover MAM (Mobile Application Management) in the below section.

NOTE! – Different Microsoft Intune Enrollment options are explained in the following post. https://microscott.azurewebsites.net/2018/08/31/managing-windows-10-with-intune-the-many-ways-to-enrol/

We can manage devices (via MDM) with an Intune client agent and arguably without Intune client agent. To manage iOS, Android, and Mac-OS devices, Intune needs an agent to be present on the device. 

Intune company portal application is the Intune agent. You can see the details in different app stores like Google Play and Apple Store.

So, when you install Intune company portal onto your Android or iOS devices, you are doing an Intune agent-based management. An Intune MSI client is available to download for Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices.

For Windows 10, Intune uses to build the MDM stack of the Windows 10 operating system itself. Enrollment of devices and decision-making on this is a critical step to Learning Microsoft Intune.

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management - Learn Microsoft Intune

I have an old post (published in Dec 2012) here to help you understand the basic stuff about Intune MSI agent installation. Once you install Intune MSI agent on Windows machines, those machines are “fully managed” by Intune. Following are the different ways to enroll devices into Intune for management.

Windows 10 Device Enrollment – Manual

More details are in the following posts:

Windows 10 Intune Enrollment Process BYOD Scenario

Windows 10 Azure AD Join Manual Process – CYOD

Learn Intune Beginners Guide MDM MAM MIM | EndPoint Manager
  • Enrolled via Intune company portal
  • Enrolled via Installation of Intune MSI client
  • Enrolled via Windows 10 1607 and later in build Azure AD join and MDM enrolment
  • MAM without MDM enrolment

What is Modern Workplace OSD Replacement (Windows AutoPilot)?

I have more posts related to Windows Autopilot at the following link – https://www.anoopcnair.com/windows-autopilot/.

Learn Intune Beginners Guide MDM MAM MIM | EndPoint Manager

Intune MAM Enabled Applications

Updated List of Microsoft Intune MAM-protected apps – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/apps-supported-intune-apps.

How to Start Using Intune Console?

Intune blade (console) is part of the Azure portal. Intune blade in Azure portal has loads of new features and functionalities. In this section, we will see an overview of the New Azure Intune Portal. Try this out https://portal.azure.com.

The following documentation is where you can start reading about all the Intune topics:- Microsoft documentation Intune quick start guide here. I have another post that gives a “Quick Overview of New Intune Azure.” Also, you can have a look at the video tutorial to understand the Intune Azure console here.

What are Intune Team’s Roles & Responsibilities?

In a high-level following are the roles and responsibilities of Intune team. Some parts of it involve Azure AD and other teams of the organization.

Understanding the roles and responsibilities will help the IT Pros to understand, How Intune works? And How will Intune be deployed within the organization? More details are available in my previous post, “Intune Team’s Roles and Responsibilities.”

Setting up a team is also part of Learn Microsoft Intune process.

  • User Management
  • Application Creation and Deployment/Assignment
  • Service Administration
  • Mobile Application Management
  • Device/Profile Management
  • Conditional Access
  • Company Resource Access
  • Software Update Management

What is Intune MDM Authority?

Setting up a mobile device management authority is an important first step before starting working with Intune. The Mobile Device Management (MDM) authority determines where you will perform mobile device management tasks.

Microsoft provides 3 options to set the MDM authority. Microsoft Intune by using the Intune Azure console, or to SCCM by using the SCCM CB console. It’s important to understand the details about MDM authority when you Learn Microsoft Intune.

In my perspective, the best design decision is to set Mobile Device Management (MDM) authority as Intune. You can set MDM authority Microsoft_Intune_Enrollment / OverviewBlade /overview section from Azure Portal.

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management - Learn Microsoft Intune

How to Start Managing Devices with Intune?

Windows 10 device management is straightforward with Intune. It’s 10 minutes of work to your sync your Windows Store for Business and Microsoft Intune. More details are in the post “Integrate Windows Store for business.” Learning Microsoft Intune is important if you are in the field of Device management.

If you want to install store apps with the corporate account, we can sync the Windows Store for Business with Intune. Once the store apps are synced with Intune then, we can deploy them to Windows 10 devices. Read the following blog post for more details  “How to Add Apps to Business Store and Install Intune Company Portal without Using MS Account.”

Intune Windows 10 MDM YouTube Playlist

Google provides two channels of management for Android devices. The first channel of management is part of general Android device management and the second channel of management is Android Work (Android for Work) device management.

  • Android (General)
  • Android for Work

Intune supports both channels of management. Google’s strategic approach is to help management only via the Android Work channel. Learn Microsoft Intune should be part of the strategic approach of SCCM Admin.

I have explained the process of how to set up Android Work from Intune Azure Portal in one of my previous posts here. You need to have a Google account to complete the setup of  Android for Work in Intune console. More details about Android for Work Enrolment readiness is available in the following post. Step by Step Video Guide Intune Azure Portal How to Setup Android Work Support.

Videos Android Devices Management via Intune

iOS\MAC OS device management has certificate requirements, and we need to go to the apple portal, upload your cert for the tenant and get the certificate for your Intune tenant. Similar to Android, iOS and Mac-OS has two channels of management. One is traditional management, and another one is advanced management via Apple DEP management.

The first iOS and MAC OS device enrollment requirement is the Apple MDM push cert setup. You need to download a different certificate signing request (CSR) from Intune tenant and upload the same to the Apple portal. Once uploaded successfully, you will get an option to download the Apple MDM push cert from the Apple portal.

In the following post, I have explained the iOS/macOS onboarding process, “How to Get Intune Environment Ready for iOS and Mac OS Devices.”

Intune step by step Video Tutorials for iOS

Intune Automatic Policy Refresh Update? 

Intune Policy Sync Time details here. You will get more understanding of these refresh timings as part of Learn Microsoft Intune.

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management

Intune immediately begins to notify the device to check in with the Intune service when any policy or an app is deployed. This typically takes less than five minutes.

If a device doesn’t check in to get the policy after the first notification is sent, Intune makes three more attempts. If the device is offline (for example, it is turned off or not connected to a network), it might not receive the notifications.

A sequence of Intune Policy Creation

There are different types of policies in Intune. All these policies are used for managing and securing mobile devices. In my opinion, we need to start creating Intune policies in the following sequence.

We will see more details about each type of Intune policy in the below sections of this post. Understanding this flow is an important step in learning Microsoft Intune.

  1. Enrollment Restriction Policy
  2. Conditional Access Policy (Azure AD)
  3. Compliance Policy
  4. Configuration Policy (Device Restriction Policy)
  5. Resource Policy (Wi-Fi, VPN profiles)
Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management Learn Microsoft Intune

Why Set Enrollment Restriction Policies

Device Enrollment is the first step of Mobile Device Management (MDM). When a device is enrolled into Intune, they have an MDM certificate, which that device then uses to communicate with the Intune service.

So, it’s best to restrict devices from enrolling into Intune environment from the security perspective. This can be achieved through Enrolment restriction policies.

Difference Between Intune Enrollment Restriction Vs. Device Restriction Profile

Why Deploy Intune Compliance Policies?

Compliance policy rules might include using a password/PIN to access devices and encrypting data stored on devices. This set of such rules is called a compliance policy. The best option is to use a compliance policy with Azure AD Conditional Access.

Intune compliance policies are the first step of the protection before providing access to corporate apps and data. I have a post that explains “How to Plan and Design Intune Compliance Policy.”

Intune Compliance Policy Support Details

The following table lists the device types that compliance policies support. Intune can automatically remediate or quarantine.  The table also describes how non-compliant settings are managed when a compliance policy is used with a conditional access policy. More details here.

Deploy Intune Device Restriction Policy

Intune Device restriction profiles are policies similar to GPO from the traditional device management world. Most enterprise organizations use GPO to restrict corporate-owned devices with these policies.

Restriction policies are security policies that need to apply to devices. Intune Device restriction policies control mobile devices’ wide range of settings and features (iOS, Android, and Windows 10). My previous blog, “How to Restrict Personal Android Devices from Enrolling into Intune.”

I love to learn about Microsoft Intune as it has a 100% return on investment (ROI).

Newbies Intune Bible to Learn Mobile Device Management

Deploy Resource Policies (Wi-Fi Profile)

Intune Resource policies help devices to connect to corporate resources. Deployment of SCEP profiles to devices helps connect to corporate resources through Wi-Fi and VPN profiles etc. Before creating an iOS SCEP profile in Intune, you need to develop and deploy a certificate chain.

More details about the Intune resource policy are available in my previous post. How to Create and Deploy SCEP Profile to iOS Devices via Intune.

Deploy Applications to Devices using Intune

One of the important use cases of Intune is to deploy applications to different flavors of devices.

The types of applications that Intune supports now are EXE, MSI (Windows Installer and Windows Installer through MDM), APK, IPA, XAP, APPX – APPXBUNDLE for Windows app package and Windows Phone app package.

Also, you can deploy store applications from Windows Store, Google Store, and Apple store using Intune Azure Portal. More details about deploying the application via Intune are given in the following links here and here.

MSI application deployment is one of the best use cases of Intune for enterprise customers. More details are available in my previous post—Intune Azure Step by Step MSI Application Deployment Video Guide.

Intune Application Model Support (Complex MSI) 

Now Intune can deploy all the complex applications to Windows 10 MDM managed Windows 10 devices using a new agent called Sidecar.

You can have more details on Vimal’s posts in the following links:

Intune Win32 App and. EXE Application Deployment using Modern Management 

Intune Win32 App Deployment Troubleshooting post – Intune Win32 app Troubleshooting

Mobile App Mgmt without Enrollment (MAM)

Microsoft Intune supports MAM without enrollment (MAM WE) and Conditional Access policies for Android devices. There are two types of management options for Windows, Android, and iOS devices with Intune.

The first one is the traditional way of MDM management, and the second method of management is the light management of apps installed on Android, iOS, and Windows devices via Intune.

BYOD devices are suitable for the MAM WE type of Intune management. Intune can also have Conditional Access policies assigned to MAM users.

For example, if a consultant’s device has already enrolled in a 3rd part EMM solution, but he wanted to have access to the client’s corporate email access on his mobile device for a concise period, then, The “MAM WE” is the best option for that consultant.

I have a post about MAM WE, “How to Enable Intune MAM without Enrollment along with Conditional Access.”

Updated List of Microsoft Intune MAM-protected apps – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/apps-supported-intune-apps.

Intune and Mac Device Management

Intune natively supports Mac Device management. But, the Intune Mac device support is very generic. Jamf is the one third-party solution that Microsoft advised all the organizations to look into if looking for more deep-level management of Mac Devices with Intune.

More details are available https://nohuman.dk/ems-jamf-connect-jamf-connect-login/. 

Learn to Troubleshoot Intune Issues

Intune troubleshooting is made easy in the Azure portal. It’s recommended to start with the “Microsoft Intune – Help and support” page in the Azure portal whenever you face any issue with Intune.

I have a post where I discussed “Start Troubleshooting Intune Policy Deployment Issues from Intune (new Azure) portal.” More details on the Video experience are here.

How to Troubleshoot Android Device​ for Intune Issue

Open the Company Portal app Menu > Help and Feedback​
CompanyPortalX.log. This log file contains a lot of information about the communication between the device and Microsoft Intune.​

Omadmlog.log. OMA-DM is an open mobile standard for managing mobile devices. com.microsoft.intune.mam.managedAppName.log. For each managed application, you have a log file with the name of the managed application.​

How to Troubleshoot iOS Device​ for Intune Issue

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/enduser/troubleshoot-your-device-ios ​Intune Company portal – User Profile – About – Send Diagnostic Report​CompanyPortal-Log.log​

How to Troubleshoot Windows Device​ for Intune Issues

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/enduser/troubleshoot-your-device-windows ​
Registry Keys​
Event Logs​
WMI

How to Start Learning Intune – Microsoft Graph API

More details on Microsoft Intune Graph API are in the following post. This post allows us to dive into many technical areas.

Intune PowerShell Script samples

You can download Intune PowerShell script samples from GitHub.

Where is the information Intune MIM in this post?

EMM, MIM, and MAM are subsets of MDM. So it’s very well part of your Intune MDM policies. This is not me ranting 🙂 Check this out from Microsoft.

Intune Group Policy Deployment

Let’s learn how to create & deploy Group policy using Intune Administrative Template. We can use Intune Administrative Template for deploying the “Cloud” Group Policy for modern managed devices.

NOTE! – More details are available in step by step guide – https://howtomanagedevices.com/intune/1671/intune-administrative-template/

Ignite Videos Intune

Ignite 2017 Video  Windows 10 & Office 365 ProPlus:

All PPT decks can be found here (updated).

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc……………

5 thoughts on “Learn Intune Beginners Guide MDM MAM MIM | EndPoint Manager”

  1. Good job
    Maybe could you help me?
    I use autoenrolment scenario for domain joined computer. Intune is set up to standalone. I have ADFS. My device is joined to ad azure (connect type Hybrid Join) with success, device is enrolled to Intune but without user assigment. When I open company portal I see “This device hasn’t been set up for corparate use yet….” . When I try assign I see message that “device is already beging managed by an organization “. In Intune console I see this device and MDM is enabled. What can I do to assign user to device? In event viewer i see 75 event Enroll success
    My previous expirence is that after auto enrolment I open company portal and only choose device category .

    Reply
  2. Hi Anoop,

    I need help in understanding few points.

    1. Is it possible to force company portal application installation on Android, iOS and Windows phone which are not managed, not by applying conditional access. I mean to say no manual intervention required to instay app from the app store.

    2. Certified based WiFi profile. My certificate is per user based, it will have password information for individual user, every user different certificate, what should I do in this case to push this certificate on every win 10 and win7 and mobile devices using Intune.

    3. Intune with Sccm and cloud management gateway to manage remote machines not connected to my network.

    Please share some details for this.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.