We continue to invest in developing capabilities that advance IT productivity and help companies improve workers’ endpoint experience. Please visit the complete list of What’s New in Endpoint Manage for 2107 (July) release. This month, we’ll highlight three capabilities that improve the experience for users and provide more flexibility and management options for organizations that support Windows deployments. As usual, I appreciate your feedback. Comment on this post, connect with me on LinkedIn, or tag me @RamyaChitrakar on Twitter.
Resolve issues faster with Windows 10 device diagnostics
Speed the resolution of common performance and endpoint health issues with Windows 10 device diagnostics. In as fast as five minutes, you can get device logs and events that will help you resolve user issues in Endpoint Manager. Today, we are announcing the general availability of Windows 10 device diagnostics collects data – including logs, event viewers, registry keys, and command outputs – and then stores it in the cloud for admins, IT staff, and helpdesk workers to review at any time.
Without disrupting user productivity, helpdesk and IT teams managing Windows 10 devices can troubleshoot without interrupting user workflows and resolve device performance issues faster. As a result, organizations can improve employee experience and save IT staff time.
Our documentation page offers lots of details but getting started with Windows 10 device diagnostics is really quite simple:
- Ensure your Windows 10 devices are enrolled in Endpoint Manager
- Designating them as “corporate” devices
- Start a Collect diagnostic remote task
- Review the collected data by downloading it from the Device diagnostics in Endpoint Manager
Watch this video to see how Windows 10 device diagnostics works:
Assess your workforce’s ability to work from anywhere
Enabling employees to work productively when remote or in hybrid work settings is essential in today’s new world. As an evolution of the current recommended software report, we are rolling out a new Endpoint Analytics report to help organizations assess whether their employees are prepared to work from anywhere. This new report provides insights and recommendations that, if acted on, can help boost your Endpoint Analytics score and unlock new features and functionality for users to ensure they can be productive.
The report captures four key metrics:
- Windows 10: Measures the percent of devices on Windows 10. Use this information to help determine which Intune and co-managed devices to move to an updated version of Windows. For Configuration Manager devices, create a deployment plan using Desktop Analytics. Your work from anywhere score is based on if these remediation actions have been completed or not. The report provides information on the devices that are not on Windows 10 as part of the metric’s recommendations and insights.
- Cloud management: This metric measures the percent of Windows desktops that are attached to the Microsoft 365 cloud with Intune and/or co-management. When endpoints are cloud managed, organizations can simplify how users are enabled to access corporate resources away from the corporate network. Eliminating the need for and performance overhead of Group Policy also results in a better user experience. There are multiple recommended actions for co-managed devices and their workloads, CMG, and tenant attached devices.
- Cloud identity: Measures the percent of devices enrolled in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) or hybrid Azure AD. Azure AD is foundational to a Zero Trust security model. Use this report to see what percentage of your Windows 10 devices are Zero Trust - ready, including device-wide, single sign-on to apps and services, Windows Hello sign-in, self-service BitLocker recovery, and corporate data roaming.
- Cloud provisioning: Measures the percent of registered Windows 10 Intune devices with a deployment profile created for Autopilot. Cloud provisioning provides a simpler initial provisioning experience for Windows 10 PCs by reducing the number of screens in the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) and provides default settings, apps, and policies, to ensure the device is correctly provisioned from the factory or on reset.
If you’ve already configured the permissions for Endpoint Analytics, the report will appear in the list of Endpoint Analytics reports on the Endpoint Analytics overview page. Open the report to see your score, insights, and recommendations. Here’s what the report looks like in the Endpoint Manager admin center:
Extend Window’s security and productivity with cloud management
Two recently announced Windows solutions are integrated with the Endpoint Manager that improves security and end user productivity. In case you missed either announcement, I’m including a summary of each new solution below and highlights their integration cloud management capabilities with Intune.
The first is Windows 365, a new Cloud PC that will allow you to securely stream your Windows experience—including your personalized apps, content, and settings—from the Microsoft cloud to any device. Windows 365 is fully integrated with Endpoint Manager and accessible from the Devices blade. Beginning on August 2, administrators will be able to check the status of their Windows 365 deployments, from provisioning to connection health, with the overview dashboard in Endpoint Manager. Read more about the cloud management integration in this article.
The second solution, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, is available to partners that are managed service providers (MSPs) interested in offering customers scale delivery of managed security services. I shared the story behind the service in this LinkedIn article. Lighthouse leverages components of Endpoint Manager, Microsoft Defender for Windows 10, Identity, and Windows 365 to provide device compliance, identity and access management, and threat protection and antivirus at a scale suitable for MSPs. Microsoft 365 Lighthouse has familiar manageability components, such as security baselines, which are built specifically for small and medium-size customers. Integrating multiple MSP customers into actionable views ensures that partners can best meet the security needs of their customers.
Share your feedback
We keep our customers’ needs top of mind and invest in areas that improve the user experience and simplify IT administration. Questions? Feedback? Comment on this post, connect with me on LinkedIn, or tag me @RamyaChitrakar on Twitter.