Software Center Vs Company Portal Differences SCCM Intune

Software Center Vs Company Portal Differences with SCCM and Intune co-managed scenario. Let’s learn more details about ConfigMgr Co-Management Workload Client Apps. The Client apps workload change helps Intune deploy and manage application & PowerShell scripts on co-managed Windows 10 devices.

Co-management can manage Windows 10 devices with two device management platforms called Intune and ConfigMgr (a.k.a SCCM). As you can see in the below diagram, Microsoft’s strategy for device management is three (3) folded.

1. Tenant Attach (More details about Tenant Attach).
2. Co-Management Workloads (this post is related to Client App Workload).
3. Cloud-Native Management.

Client Apps Workload

Once you transition client app workload from co-management properties, I explained in the previous blog post – How to Setup SCCM Co-Management to Offload Workloads to Intune. You could manage apps and PS scripts from both SCCM and Intune.

• Any available apps deployed from Intune are available in the Company Portal.
• Apps that you deploy from Configuration Manager are available in Software Center.

NOTE! – Starting in ConfigMgr version 2006, you can configure the Company Portal to also show SCCM apps. If you change this app portal experience, it changes the behaviors described in the below diagram. I have explained this behavior in the below section.

Client Apps Workload is NOT Switched to Intune?

In a scenario, the device is already enrolled to Intune using group policy, but what if the client apps workload is not switched to Intune? As per my testing, the Intune application deployment won’t work on the Windows 10 co-managed device until you switch the client app workload to Intune. However, SCCM application deployment works as expected.

How to Change Co-Management Client Apps workload?

Now, let’s see how to switch the Co-Management Client Apps workload to pilot Intune or Intune.

• Navigate to \Administration\Overview\Cloud Services\Co-management
• Click on CoMgmtSettingProd.
• Select the properties option from the ribbon menu.
• Click on the Workloads tab.
• Slide the Client Apps and switch to Pilot Intune or Intune.

• Click on the Staging tab (Only if you selected the Pilot Intune option).
• Select the pilot collection for the Client Apps workload.
• Click Apply and OK.

ConfigMgr Deployments

You can check the ConfigMgr (a.k.a SCCM) deployments from the device properties – Deployments tab. This helps you to get the list of applications deployed to Windows 10 devices. I feel the below view could help analyze the application deployment details.

How to Check Co-Management is Enabled

This section helps to confirm whether Windows 10 device is co-managed or not.

• You can confirm the Co-Management Status of Windows 10 Client from the Endpoint Manager (a.k.a Intune) portal – https://endpoint.microsoft.com/.

• You can also Confirm the co-management status from ConfigMgr Applet on Windows 10 device.
  • Co-management = Enabled.

Client Apps Behavior

This section will explain the Co-management deployment behaviors with Intune and ConfigMgr (a.k.a SCCM) and how the application and PowerShell script deployment behaves co-managed world.

• Company Portal shows the applications deployed from Intune and Configuration Manager (a.k.a SCCM).
  • Intune – Available Applications deployed to users AD Group.
  • ConfigMgr – Available applications deployed to users or devices collection.

NOTE! – To install & manage SCCM applications from the company portal, you need to have connectivity back to SCCM infrastructure via corporate network/VPN/CMG. The same applies to the software centers as well.

• Software Center shows only the applications deployed as available & required from ConfigMgr (a.k.a SCCM).

Tips & Updates

Also, there are options in client settings policies to enable either software center or Company portal for the following workloads.

Resources

• ConfigMgr Client App Vs SCCM Software Center

Overview Windows 10 Co-Management with Intune and SCCM 
Custom Report to Identify Machines Connected via SCCM CMG  
How to Setup Co-Management - Introduction - Prerequisites Part 1 
How to Setup Co-Management - Firewall Ports Proxy Requirements Part 2 
Setup Co-Management - AAD Connect UPN Suffix Part 3 
Setup Co-Management - CA PKI & Certificates Part 4 
Setup Co-Management Cloud DP Azure Blob Storage Part 5 
Setup Co-Management Azure Cloud Services CMG Part 6
SCCM Configure Settings for Client PKI certificates Part 7
How to Setup SCCM Co-Management to Offload Workloads to Intune - Part 8 (This Post)
How to Deploy SCCM Client from Intune - Co-Management - Part 9
End User Experience of Windows 10 Co-Management - Part 10

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 a blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. E writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…