With last week’s update from CIE 4.1 to 4.5, the Office 365 based version added support for Yammer and CRM Online, moving into a position of having scenario elements that the VM based version doesn’t offer just yet. One of the elements that is still missing though is the incorporating of Windows Intune into the scenarios.
This is something that isn’t all that difficult to do, depending on how complex you want to make it, but for the sake of keeping things simple the following approach gives you an easy way to give incorporate Windows Intune without having to worry about resetting the client machine or tenant for each delivery. Let’s start with my preferred client for showing Windows Intune on a non-traditional PC – Windows RT.
Why Windows RT? First of all, it replicates much of the look and feel that the Windows 8 Enterprise clients display, so it’s another opportunity to highlight the new UI and various hints and tips for navigating. It also allows the use of the Windows Store App, rather than the web based Company Portal. You can also easily hook a Windows RT device to a projector, many locations don’t have a visualiser to allow the projection of phone devices onto a larger screen, so this way everyone gets to see it before they get a chance to try it. You can use your own Windows RT device knowing that your own information is safe in your own profile while the attendees browse through whatever is in the user profile you provide them.
Alternatively, if you have an iOS device it’s easy enough to enroll those too, and you may even have a volunteer from the attendees who wants to add their own device. Just make sure you remove their device at the end of the session, otherwise someone could accidentally remote wipe it in a future session. Not a good thing to have occur.
Why not just use one of the Windows 8 laptops or tablets that is in use during the session? There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that if you are doing locally hosted deliveries of the CIE, the clients are going to have the SCCM client installed, and you probably won’t have time between sessions to address this. Also, by using a Windows RT device, it isn’t going to be a core part of the CIE delivery, and it will be light enough to pass around the room for people to try.
How do you weave the Windows Intune story into the CIE? My opinion on this is that it needs to be incorporated into the first scenario – Get A Head Start. This is where the mobile device discussion normally takes place, so it’s a natural fit. Don’t dwell on the management side of Windows Intune, instead focus on the client side UI, as it’s the user experience that matters during a CIE.
First of all, for the sake of consistency, brand the Windows Intune tenant as Contoso. Because you aren’t going to be doing a complete integration of the two environments, you only need a single user tenant for the purpose of the demonstration. This means that it’s easier to just wear the cost of a single user annual subscription, rather than continually recreate a trial tenant when it expires. This will still allow you to add up to 5 device, so it’s not really going to be a limitation in a simulated environment like this.
The steps for adding a Windows RT device to a Windows Intune tenant are quite simple, here are some screenshots to get you started. First of all, search for Company Applications in settings.
This will shoot you back to the desktop, where you will be rewarded with a UAC prompt for Company Applications. It’s from Microsoft, so of course it’s trustworthy…
The next step is adding your Windows Intune sign in details and password, and when prompted for the management server, you will need to enter manage.microsoft.com.
Once this information has been verified you will be provided with a link to the web based listing on the Windows Store.
Click on View in Windows Store. It’s almost like they read my mind – they have branded the sample page with Contoso! What a coincidence, especially considering it could have been NorthWind Traders, TailSpin Toys, and many of our other fictitious friends.
Install the App, which won’t take long as it’s quite small.
Once installation is complete, launch the Company Portal from the Start Screen.
Time to sign in again, this time through the Company Portal App
At this point you are ready to enroll the device against your account.
Success – you are now logged in and able to install Windows RT apps from your Windows Intune storage or via deep links to the Windows Store.
Here you can see a deep link to the Remote Desktop App on the Windows Store.
That’s a really quick overview, and ignores setting up the Windows Intune tenant and publishing some Windows RT Apps, but that wasn’t the goal of today’s post. Maybe it’s something that will be topic of a future post…
