One of the promises of Microsoft 365 is simplified administration, and over the years we’ve integrated the back-end Microsoft 365 services to deliver end-to-end scenarios such as Intune and Azure Active Directory conditional access. The specialist workspace for Microsoft 365 Device Management provides easy access to the devices, apps, and other endpoint management information and tasks that your organization needs. It is one of specialist workspaces within the Microsoft 365 administration center to consolidate, simplify, and integrate the admin experience. We are excited to announce that the refreshed and streamlined administration experience is now generally available!
Over the past several months, Microsoft conducted significant research with IT professionals to see where we could make the most impact. We took the feedback from that research and designed enhancements to the IT administrator experience for Microsoft Intune. These changes and improvements are in process of being rolled out at https://devicemanagement.microsoft.com
Microsoft Intune administrators who prefer to use the console through Azure portal the way they have done so far may continue to do so. The streamlined experience will be developed within the Microsoft 365 specialist workspace.
A simplified navigation experience
One of the most visible changes that administrators will notice is the simplified first level of navigation, and more logical grouping of the functionality. The long list of menu items is replaced by the hierarchy of elements that IT administrators must manage for successful endpoint management, such as devices, apps, users, groups, and tenant. Here’s the redesigned navigation layout:
These are the first-level items in the left navigation and what you use them for:
- Devices – View devices, create and assign device policies and configuration
- Apps – Create and assign apps, app policies and app configuration
- Users – View and manage users for your organization
- Groups -- View and manage users for your organization
- Tenant Administration – Infrequent but important configuration for your Intune tenant
- Troubleshooting & Support
Microsoft 365 device management home page
The redesigned experience also introduces a new home page that allows you to quickly see service health, the state of your tenant, as well as news around new features and functionality that we’re releasing. The home page will improve the overall response time and help administrators proactively address outstanding alerts or issues before they create large-scale helpdesk events. This is also a great way for newer administrators to discover additional functionality in Intune, for example, if someone who is an expert with on-premises Windows management is exploring the world of cloud-attached management.
Platform filters
Another key feedback from administrators has been that they often tackle configuration and monitoring tasks by specific platform type, rather than complete each step for all platforms before moving to the next. To allow you to focus on actions for a specific platform, the console now has the ability to filter by a single platform. For example, select Windows as your platform, and the navigation options and the list views will show only those policies and apps that are relevant for Windows. The same behavior would apply if you filter by iOS, Android, or macOS.
Get started and learn more
The October 2019 release of Microsoft Intune includes the experience refresh for all tenants. This article only scratched the surface of the fantastic experience we’re building for Intune customers. Watch the What’s New in Intune page for other exciting features coming soon. Meanwhile, feel free to explore other improvements in the enhanced console when you login using your existing credentials at https://devicemanagement.microsoft.com
Learn more about device management and other Intune features in the product documentation
Next steps
At Microsoft, we are always listening to customers and designing the products for maximum productivity. We encourage you to share your feedback with the new features in the comments below, and suggest new feature requests using User Voice.
For more information on how to deploy Microsoft Intune, add our detailed technical documentation as a browser favorite. Don’t have Microsoft Intune? Start a free trial or buy a subscription today!
If you have any other suggestions, questions, or comments, please visit us on our Tech Community page
(This blog is co-authored with Craig Marl, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft 365)