Microsoft Intune moving to Azure

In response to customer feedback about annoying duplication of service, Microsoft has announced that Intune Groups will be converted to Azure Active Directory Security Groups immediately for new users.

The switch will happen in phases. Only new Intune customers will be affected when the transition kicks off this month. Existing Intune customers will migrate over to the new Azure AD security groups starting in November.

The new Azure AD security groups management capability, when available for Intune subscribers, will simply show up. It will appear in a "new Azure-based Intune admin portal," according to a "What's new" Microsoft announcement. 

"The new experience will keep users from having to duplicate groups between services, and provides extensibility using PowerShell and Graph." 

New Capabilities on Azure

One of the new capabilities coming with Azure AD Security Groups will be the ability to "dynamically group devices based on platform." For instance, under this scheme, new iOS devices will automatically be enrolled into an iOS device group when added. 

Organisations however  will lose some functionality with the switch. For instance, they won't be able "to exclude members or groups when you create a new group." Instead, they can use "advanced rules" for this purpose.

Also, be aware that there will not be support for any "Ungrouped Users" and "Ungrouped Devices" that an organisation may have created. Additionally, organisations "won't be able to group Exchange ActiveSync devices" with the new approach. 

Microsoft Statement:

All user and device groups in Intune today will be migrated to Azure AD security groups. Migration will be done in batches starting in November. We won't start migrations until we can minimize any impact to your day-to-day work and expect no end-user impact. We will also provide you a notice prior to your account’s migration.

Support

Documentation and updated migration timelines will be kept current on the grouping docs page. Questions or concerns can be addressed to the migration team at intunegrps@microsoft.com

VoicePlus is Microsoft Intune capable.

VoicePlus managing director, Michael Giffney, is currently attending the Microsoft annual conference in the Gold Coast, Queensland.