Microsoft Intune is a service that focuses on mobile device management and mobile application management. Cloud based, Intune allows the user to organise and control the usage of company devices. These can include mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and a plethora of other electronic devices.
Intune, as you can probably tell solely from the above paragraph if you have never heard of it before, can prove itself to be a mightily useful application to possess, taking from you the tedious necessity of organising and managing a multitude of devices. This is easily said, of course, but how do you group the devices you wish to manage together?
Chances are, if you are seeking an answer to such a question, then that is why you have clicked on this article today. Just how do you group devices together on Microsoft Intune? Thankfully, there is a clearly structured answer to this question, and it is that answer that we will be looking into today.
So, in order to group devices together within Microsoft Intune, you must navigate to the Microsoft Endpoint admin center and create a new group, in which you can place the devices you wish to group together.
Now, if this alone isn’t enough for you to work with, then don’t worry. It would hardly be fair to expect that a lone sentence would serve to provide you with enough information. As such, we will be breaking the information down in two further ways.
First, we will be offering a step by step breakdown of the process, which will serve as a swift solution for those of you that feel it is enough for you to work with. If the steps are not enough, which may well be the case for some, then read on, as we will be breaking down the process even further.
Following the steps will be a complete breakdown of the process, complete with highlighted screenshots in order to best suit your aid.
DISCLAIMER: This process requires access to the admin center of Microsoft. In order to possess this, you must be a global admin, which is a status you may well not have. To see if it is accessible to you, your best bet will be getting into contact with your local provider to see whether or not you can become a global admin.
Step by step: How to group devices together in Intune
- Open a Microsoft application and from there, launch Microsoft Admin.
- From here, look to the left of the screen and, at the bottom of the list that you’ll see, click ‘Show All’.
- Now, click ‘Endpoint Manager’ to enter the Endpoint admin center.
- Select the subheading titled ‘Groups’, and from there, click ‘New Group’.
- You will then be offered the chance to select one of the following group types:
- Security
- Microsoft 365
- After choosing your group type, enter a group name and description.
- Then, enter a membership type and choose from the following options:
- Assigned
- Dynamic User
- Dynamic Device
- Now, look to create your group. From here, you will be able to add several devices to the group, as well as assign an owner to the group. After doing this, click ‘Create’.
So, your first step will be to open and log in to the Microsoft Endpoint admin center. You may well know a way to do this manually, in which case, you can follow that. It will make no difference to the overall tutorial how you access the Endpoint admin center, so long as you reach that point.
If you aren’t sure how to access this though, then simply login to any Microsoft application you use, such as Outlook, and click on the application launcher in the top left corner of your screen. Here, launch the Microsoft Admin center. Should you need it, the icon has been highlighted in the below screenshot.
Clicking ‘Show All’ will broadly expand the contents of the Admin center subsection. There will now be an option titled ‘Endpoint Manager’, and it is this that you will want to click. Again, it has been highlighted below if you need the assistance.
After clicking this, you will have opened the Endpoint admin center, from which you will be able to continue with this process. On the Endpoint admin center, look to the left hand side of your screen, on which there should be a tab labelled ‘Groups’. Click on this.
Now, you should look to click the option titled ‘New Group’. Again, should you need any further assistance, there is a screenshot with the necessary step highlighted below.
Clicking this will bring you to a new menu. Your first option will be a decision on what type of group you would like to create. As was aforementioned, you will have two options here, Security and Microsoft 365. You will see them as thus:
Microsoft themselves define the Security groups as so;
“Security groups define who can access resources, and are recommended for your groups in Intune. For example, you can create groups for users, such as All Charlotte employees or Remote workers. Or, create groups for devices, such as All iOS/iPadOS devices or All Windows 10 student devices”.
Whereas they define the Microsoft 365 groups as things that can “provide collaboration opportunities by giving members access to a shared mailbox, calendar, files… and more”. In truth, your selection depends on the preferences you have for your group.
Of course, the choice of group is entirely dependent on your preference, but make sure you select one of the options available to you.
Following your decision on the group type you would like to proceed with, you will need to enter the name of your group, as well as give a brief description to accompany it. Now, you can probably imagine that this doesn’t need an explanation, so we will be moving on to the step you need to take after entering the name and description.
After the name and description, you will need to decide the membership type for your new group. Here, you will have three options to choose from, as you will see in the below screenshot.
As you can see, you can choose from one of ‘Assigned’, ‘Dynamic User’, and ‘Dynamic Device’. The first of the three would mean that administrators can manually add or remove users or devices from the group.
As for the other two, the ‘Dynamic User’ option means that administrators can create membership rules to automatically add or remove members, whilst ‘Dynamic Device’ is exactly the same, only for devices instead of users. So, in answer to the overall question of grouping devices together in Intune, here, you should maybe look to click ‘Dynamic Device’.
Then, you will want to add an owner to your group, before looking into the rules section in which you can create any specific rules for devices to be added to your group. After doing this, click ‘Create’ at the bottom of your screen. All of this has been numbered for you in the below screenshot.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, I hope you found it as helpful as you wanted it to be! As is the case with every post we publish, if you encounter any issues or simply wish to ask us some questions, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team.