Author: Ola Ström

Categories
Digital Transformation

Expectation management and communications

expectations

Before we get started, I’m in no way pretending to be a communications professional. These are just my experiences and learnings down the road.

Let’s face it, and we all know this. In general, we in IT are not great in end-user communication and expectation management. We live and breathe technology, and somewhere we sometimes forget that someone is supposed to use our fancy-best-of-breed-solution.

Okay, a bit over generalizing but if you have worked in IT, I think you might recognize this. We often forget about the end-user and we fail to tell them about all the wonderful things we do, but also what they can expect from us.

I will try to provide you with a high-level view, to help YOU take the decisions what to do and why, not really the HOW in this post.

Now that we have managed the expectations, let’s get into this.

Expectations management

Since you are reading this, I assume that you are in some way involved in the end-user service area and are either providing or helping to provide services to end users. You are operating in the layer where most users interact.

But what have you promised your end users? What are they buying from you? Do they know or are they just “paying the bill”? This is something that varies between organizations, depending on size, location, culture, and previous structures of the IT department.

But what are you selling to your end users? Are they just buy “a computer” or are there more services attached like deskside support and a helpdesk?

There are a lot of questions related to this, and hence one of the themes for this post.

What do your users THINK that they are buying and what are you delivering?

This is the most important part which is also the trickiest one. To set an expectation with your users (which are your customers) on what they will receive buying the service from you. It might be that you are the only one that are allowed to provide this service within you organization, or that you are the preferred one but they could operate it them self or turn to a third party to provide this.

None the less, making it clear for the end users on what to expect from your service is increasingly important. Especially since enabling new services is three clicks and a credit card away…

What value are you adding to the equation?

End-user communications

Enter end-user communications. This is a hard area and there is a reason that organizations hire communications professionals. They might not know all about fancy IT stuff (that’s not why they were hired), but you can make sure that they know all about getting your message out there!

From my experience by working in the end-user area, this is something that is super important but also, very often forgotten about. We tend to update something we consider as small, but it might have huge end-user impact. If we don’t successfully inform our users about this, we might cause unnecessary frustrations. Even though we need to adopt an Evergreen mindset, we need to make sure that our users know what’s going on. Keep them in the loop.

I’m no communications expert, but I’ve seen and delivered the outcome from projects where there were a lot of end-user communications and less communication. What do you think where the most successful, in the aspect of user adoption?

Yes, the projects where extensive end-user communications were performed.

However, you always need to adopt amount/channels/information to whomever is the target for the change. Some information might only be needed by your support people, other information might be of more value to your end-users.

The go-do / take away

So, what is the takeaway from this?

Try to define your services for your end-users possible and communicate these. A PDF hidden away on a SharePoint site will never be found, putting it on some sort of intranet site might be a better idea to clearly state to your end-users what they can expect by buying the service from you and what value you add to them.

This is of course something that varies between businesses, but defining services is a crucial step to set the expectations right with your users.

I would also really encourage you to reach out to your communications professionals within your business for advice and work together with them. They can really help you get you message out there, making sure that your end-users (customers) understand why things are happening and changing in the way they are. But don’t expect them to do your work for you. You will still need to put in the effort but getting their advice and/or input might change the success rate of your project.

Categories
Intune Modern Workplace

Why managed Android matters

Looking at the Swedish market, most of the companies I meet are managing their devices. These devices are usually iOS/iPadOS devices since, let’s face it, iOS has been superior in the Mobile Device Management segment throughout the years since they have had more settings exposed to MDM than Android. This has however changed over the years and the difference is not at all the same as of let’s say 3-5 years ago.

We can always discuss why platform A is better than platform B, but let’s not get into that. Everyone will have a separate opinion on this.

Looking at where we are today, many companies I meet manage their iPhones and iPads but haven’t really gotten around to Android yet. It’s still in some sense viewed as a secondary platform and not something that is wanted (it’s one more platform to provide end-user support on for one thing).

I fully respect this. However….

Looking back at my previous posts about what tools people to expect to use in the workplace, we are seeing a lot of growing demand for Android devices.

This could be out of personal preferences, the fact that the device is cheaper or the iPhone not being available in the market where the user lives. But this means that dodging the question of Android becomes harder and harder. And the later you get on top of Android, the harder the transition will be since Android is a lot different to manage compared to iOS/iPadOS.

For Android, you have to options depending on your wants and needs. You have Work Profile and Device Owner.

Management methods for Android

You should AT ALL COST avoid using Device Administrator since this is a legacy protocol which will be decommissioned by Google.

In this post I will not cover the dedicated devices method since this is meant for special adoptions and not regular end-users.

Work Profile

Work Profile is the most basic version of Android management and it has the least impact on already existing phones. Your users must download the Company Portal to enroll into Intune. This will create a separate “work sphere” where all corporate data will live.

This is the easiest form of Android management and you can deploy applications, configurations, and compliance policies. The work data will be separated from the personal data, but there are some limitations around management. This is the easiest way to start managing your Android devices without too much user impact.

Device Owner

Device owner or fully managed is the full feathered version of Android management where Intune takes total control of the device. This is more like how the iOS devices would be in a supervised mode. This management method also enabled Google Zero Touch enrollment (or Samsung Knox) for easier user onboarding. But you can of course have your users scan a QR code on first launch.

A huge benefit with this from a corporate perspective is that the user won’t need a Google account to enroll and download corporate applications. They can add a personal Google account, but it’s not needed to use it as a corporate device. Google accounts can otherwise be a hassle for less experienced user.

Company-owned work enabled

This version of Android management is when this blogpost is being written to officially launched, it’s still in preview.

This is however a combination of Work Profile and Device owner management where you as an organization gains full control over the device (giving you more management capabilities) but corporate data and personal data is separated.

This requires a device reset, just as device owner, but the user will get one corporate sphere and one personal sphere. The data is managed in the corporate sphere and left to the end users’ privacy in the personal sphere.

In my view, this will be the more attractive version of Android management overall since you can have a separation between personal and corporate data.

This method works extra smooth if you combine it with Google Zero Touch or Samsung Knox. If you don’t see a possibility to have this in place, you can of course have your users scan a QR code on first launch.

Where should you start?

Start small and start easy. If you have a lot of Android devices today, Work Profile is the best place to start. Having users reset their devices containing photos, apps etc. is not a popular thing to do. You could argue that it’s a corporate device and your users must comply, but this is not an effective way to build trust and getting the devices into management.

If you have just a few devices and looking to introduce Android into your environment, Device owner or the new Corporate-owned work enabled method is the way to go. You will have fresh devices going in and the need for a reset doesn’t exist. Combine this with Google Zero Touch or Samsung Knox and you will have a killer user on-boarding experience!

What are your thoughs on Android and where do you stand today? Comment below!

Categories
Intune Modern Workplace

What is the difference between a user and a device?

user-device

As I’m browsing through the Microsoft Q&A forum for Intune related question, there is one thing that I see which seems to be a quite common misconception. That misconception is the difference between what a user is and what a device is.

It’s not that people don’t know the physical difference between what a user (a person) and a device (an object) is, it’s in the sense of how they differ in Intune management and the cloud world.

Let’s try to sort this out, shall we?

Definitions:
  • User – noun – “A person who uses or operates something.”
  • Device – noun – “A thing made or adapted for a particular purpose, especially a piece of mechanical or electronic equipment”

Disclaimer: I’m trying to wright this extremely simple and basically assuming that the term user and device is not known.

Who is the user?

The user is the person who in your organization is consuming the services and using devices. Users are usually a 1:1 scenario, but you might also have service users and group users. Behind a user there is in most cases ONE person (the Microsoft license structure kind of assumes this as well).

In an Intune context, the user is the person who uses the device. The user is in a the most common context tied to a specific device where the user is the primary user and owner of the device.

A user might have multiple devices such as a computer, a phone, and a tablet.

An Azure AD user

What is the device?

The device is the piece hardware which the services are consumed on. This can be a computer, tablet, or phone. The device must, in an Intune context, run any of the supported operating systems:

  • iOS
  • iPadOS
  • macOS
  • Windows 10
  • Android

The device usually has one main user and owner, which is the one tied to the device in Intune and Azure AD.

An Intune enrolled device

What is the difference and why does it matter?

But why does this all matter?

The reason this is important is in how you in Intune would distribute configurations, compliance policies, applications and so on.

When you distribute any of these in Intune, you get to select whether you want to assign this to users or devices. Without knowing the difference, knowing which option to select is hard.

However, the item itself is never applied to the user. It is ALWAYS applied to the device. The assignment only decides on what devices to apply the item in question.

If you assign to a device

If you assign your e.g. configuration with a device centric approach, this means that the configuration will only follow that device. If the user uses another device, the configuration will not be present on the second device.

If you assign to a user

If you assign your e.g. configuration with a user centric approach, this means that the configuration will follow the user. If the user uses another device, the configuration will apply also to that device (given it’s applicable for the device type).

The key take away

It pretty much defines how your configurations, policies and applications are distributed and utilized.

The conclusion of this is that, depending on what scenario you want to fulfill, you might have to assign things in different ways. There are also a few things that might make more sense in distributing in one way or another.

One thing that is important to keep in mind around applications is however the fun topic of licensing. Depending on how you have licensed an application, you might have to distribute in a certain way. So that is something that is important to think about when purchasing applications.

Categories
Intune Tips & Tricks

Silent Bitlocker in Windows Autopilot

When enrolling devices through Windows Autopilot and using Intune enabling Bitlocker without user interaction can be a little bit of a hassle since the default behavior is to ask the end-user to encrypt the device in runtime.

This pop-up can easily confuse end-users and the device is not really “ready to use” once the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) has closed.

There are several different solutions for this, where running a PowerShell-scrip as a Win32 app during enrollment is the most common one.

BUT I’ve found a way to skip this, but it does have some distinct limitations (except for all other Bitlocker requirements):

  • Use Intune for device management
  • Device can only be joined to the Azure AD
  • Running Windows 10 1809 or later
  • No third-party disk encryption services can be used

So how do you configure this?

In Microsoft Intune, go to Endpoint Security > Disk encryption and create a new profile:

Select “Windows 10 and later” as platform and choose the Bitlocker profile, then click create. Give your profile a name based on your naming convention and click next.

To enforce Bitlocker during enrollment, you need to

  • Set “Enable full disk encryption for OS and fixed drives” to Yes
  • Set “Hide prompt about third-party encryption” to Yes
  • Set “Allow standard users to enable encryption during Autopilot” to Yes

A heads up on these settings though, if you are using any third-party encryption, you might break the machine and you will have to re-install the machine. So be careful if applying to existing machines.

Then set your preferred settings for Bitlocker on OS and fixed drives, this is what I am running in this lab setup. One good setting to use is “Require device to back up recovery information to Azure AD” to ensure that you have the recovery information available for the machine. These settings might vary based on your organizational needs and requirements.

Click next until you end up on “Assignments” and select your targeted device group.

Click next and review your settings before hitting “Create” on the Review + Create page.

And that’s it! Your devices will now silently encrypt using Bitlocker during Autopilot enrollment.

Categories
Digital Transformation Modern Workplace

The end of an era

It has finally happened. The process of decommissioning the old trusty Internet Explorer has begun.

Microsoft announced on the 17th of August that Micrsoft 365 will lose its support for Internet Explorer on August 17th, 2021. This is a quite tremendous change for many organizations, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Internet Explorer will be phased out eventually. Also, the “old” Edge will reach its end of life March 9th, 2021.

M365_Edge_ProductTeams_0-1597603232572.png
Image source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/212662i312B0747F33CC94E/image-size/large?v=1.0&px=999

Back when Windows 10 launched, there were a lot of buzz around the new, improved, browser Edge. However, it never took of (I however really liked it). A lot of business systems where built back when Internet Explorer was the thing and not always have the effort been put into adopting it to modern web.

With Windows 10, something called Enterprise Site Mode list was introduced, which was basically a XML list of sites where if you tried to go to them using Edge you would get redirected to Internet Explorer since that site was on your “not compatible” list for Edge.

We used this to a limited extent at my previous employer, but Internet Explorer was the default browser since we had no clue what other systems would have issues if we transitioned to Edge (or Chrome for that matter).

However, that was a few years ago and a lot has happened to Edge and there is a new Chromium (Chrome) based version out which is really good! And if you are a fan of the Chrome browser, but don’t want to have yet another browser installed to confuse your users, the new improved Edge is the way to go. It’s Chrome, but in a Microsoft shell (and you have Azure AD support without any extension).

But what does this all mean?

It means that it’s time to take the bull by its horn and start moving away from Internet Explorer as the default browser. The death of Internet Explorer is yet not announced in any shape or form but losing support for Microsoft 365 services is a major step in that direction.

The first step you need to take is to change into modern browser as the default for all your users. Since I’m a Microsoft advocate, I would suggest looking at the new Edge if you haven’t done so yet.

The new Edge comes for all supported Windows platforms, but also macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS. You could have the same browser for all corporate web interactions on all platforms (and of course directing mobile devices traffic using Application Protection Policies).

Also, deploying Microsoft Edge out to your clients is easy. If you are using Microsoft Intune to manage your devices, Edge for Windows is part of the “App type” to make it even easier to deploy.

What is your default browser today and are you looking to shift to the new Microsoft Edge?

Comment below!

Categories
Modern Workplace

While you were away…

while-you-were-away

Summer holidays are always fun, but it also means that I try to stay offline (at least form work stuff) to disconnect and recharge. Covid-19 is still around which means a lot of us will keep working remotely (and practicing social distancing) and this drives a lot of development in the modern workplace area.

Except from the mandatory updates for the computer (and phone this time), there is some catching up to do. I´ve gathered some highlights of what was released during the summer:

Some Teams updates with the long anticipated pop-out meeting feature: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-teams-july-2020/ba-p/1551561

And of course, one of the most exciting device news this year. The Surface Duo is officially launched: https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/08/12/available-for-preorder-today-surface-duo-is-purpose-built-for-mobile-productivity/

Support for Hybrid Azure AD join though VPN in Windows Autopilot: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/autopilot/windows-autopilot-whats-new#new-in-windows-10-version-2004

Preview in Intune for Android Enterprise corporate-owned devices with a work profile (COPE): https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/intune-customer-success/intune-announcing-public-preview-for-android-enterprise/ba-p/1524325

Microsoft Ignite will be an online experience which will take place 22nd to 24th of September: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite

There has of course been a lot of other interesting news, but these are some of the highlights in my world!

Categories
Microsoft 365 Tips & Tricks

Make better looking PowerPoint presentations

Okay, so this isn’t a new feature in PowerPoint but it doesn’t make is less useful! (And I don’t think everyone knows about it).

There is a feature in PowerPoint called Design Ideas which helps you create better looking slides. It will give you several suggestions based on the content of you slide, like if you have bullet points you can show them in a more visually attractive way.

What I also really like, is that it will adapt to the template I user, like this one created with a corporate template. It will match the color scheme and not go to crazy with its suggestions.

The feature is called Design Ideas and you need to enable it in the ribbon. I use it quite frequently to make the PPTs a little more fun.

If you are not using a template, it will list some suggestions for you with more creative ideas then if you are using a corporate template.

What is your best PowerPoint tip? Share it in the comments!

Bonus…

However, sometimes you get weird suggestions like this GIF of water I got on a new slide. I´m guessing this is NOT what Microsoft meant by fluid framework…

Categories
Me

Welcome!

So the time has come, I’ve FINALLY launched my own blog again.

I’ve had this domain and blog for several years and it has transformed over the years. Now, it will take the form of a modern workplace blog where I will share my learnings, findings, and hands-on tips on how to solve things!

My idea is to do this my own way and adding a personal touch to it.

So who am I?

You can find this under the About section as well.

I usually describe myself as a millennial since I’m born in that period and I identify a lot with the definition (and I do prefer avocado toast over diamonds).

I’ve worked within IT since 2011 and I’ve always worked with device management in some way or another. It all started back in 2011 when I worked with mobile device management at Sandvik IT Services. In 2013, I joined Microsoft’s MACH program as a consultant within devices, further developing and expanding my knowledge to also the Windows platform and more traditional management.

In 2017, I joined Sandvik IT Services once again, this times as a Service Manager over the client platform. In mid 2019 I switched role to become a Solution Architect in the modern workplace area. During this time, I helped drive the internal digital transformation with switching to modern productivity tools. I was also was involved in several big projects with the goal to modernize IT.

Since late 2019 I work as a Technical Specialist within devices at Advania, within the specialist unit Knowledge Factory.

I realised early on that to catch up with my senior colleges, it was a clever idea to focus Microsoft Intune since it was a new product in the Microsoft echo system where I could dive in and evolve faster. With that said, I do have knowledge of traditional management. I choose to view it as I understand what you have you in your legacy backpack to apply modern methods and helping you on your modernization journey.

My work life drive is quite simple (and you might find where the inspiration come from): I believe that everyone should be able to be as productive as possible with the tools they prefer in an uncomplicated way.

With that said, welcome to my new blog: Ola Ström – My modern workplace.

Categories
Digital Transformation Modern Workplace

The grey-area between work and private applications

(Originally published on LinkedIn)

TLDR; Microsoft AppStore, consider making this available for your users to unlock their full potential.

So, you have taken the leap over to Windows 10? (That’s awesome since support for Windows 7 ended 14th of January if you didn’t by additional extended support, I´m really hoping you did move).

Windows 10 brings you a LOT of new features, services, ideas and challenges. One of those is the Microsoft Store which grants your users access to all kinds of apps and other things like themes and language packs.

This is great, isn’t it?

This is an interesting topic. On one hand you have the fear of more support and your users demanding support for things your IT department is not prepared nor staffed for. On the other hand, this is a hidden gem full of potential and users expecting things to work in a certain way. This post will cover that, but mostly on the end of “this is a great idea” rather than “lock that down, we don’t support that!”. I’m not in any way judging someone or saying “your decision is wrong”, more on the hand of giving the point of view from someone who was responsible for 35k clients and what I learned from that and form talking to customers, peers and friends who uses Windows 10 in a corporate setup.

Disclaimer before I start. I will as usually oversimplify stuff (as the naive millennial I am), don’t care about network capacity and things like that. This will target an expected user behaviour and user expectations. Also, I’m aware that I’ve in some way or another discussed this with people who reads this and I’m not calling you out on any things mentioned in this in any shape or form, you inspired me to write this. I might also be neglecting any legal/licensing aspects of this.

Microsoft Store – the difference between private and corporate

But let’s start with the basics. What is Microsoft Store?

Microsoft Store is a marketplace for applications, much like the AppStore/Google Play Store we know from our phone (I know MacOS also have this but I’m leaving that out for now). The store offers users to download applications to their machine from a trusted source (applications are checked by Microsoft before being published) and they can install these without privileged access (admin access). All applications are installed in a user-context and user A will never see user B’s applications. The risk or malicious code is extremely small.

There is however one major thing to point out here, which is easily missed. There IS a distinction between your private sphere and your corporate sphere.

If you download e.g. Spotify or Netflix, this application will be connected to your PERSONAL Microsoft account if you download it from the public part of the store. If you choose to download it without and account, it will still be connected to a “personal sphere”.

BUT if you download an application from the business side of the store, this will be connected to your corporate account. To download things connected to your corporate account, you need to enable Microsoft Store for Business and this will give your users a new tab in the store called e.g. Contoso. Everything downloaded from this tab, will be connected to your organisation and you will have to obtain a license for it (free or paid). This requires your users to either sign in with their Azure AD account, you to enable hybrid join or the machine being only Azure AD joined.

This means that Windows can keep track of what is private and what is corporate which means that you will only need to keep track of what YOU support.

What if your employees are more productive if they listen to music? Should you block that on their computer? And what happens when you block e.g. Spotify on their corporate computer?

Well, most information workers today have corporate issued smartphone… You didn’t restrict that app on those kinds of devices. So, your workers will consume that service, with a privately owned account, anyways on a corporate device…

And to be honest, if you blocked this one their corporate phone, they would use their personal device instead (or even an old fashion radio).

Enter the grey-area between work and personal life

What does your user expect in the form of services, support and how to use their devices?

User behaviour has shifted a lot since the dawn of device management. We are now entering 2020 and most people have some form of knowledge of how to use a computer or a phone. This means that the expectations are shifting and we at IT needs to adapt to this and understand that our users now know their way around a computing device (computer or phone). Concepts as internet, App-stores and browsers are not new, this has been around for about a decade (the Apple AppStore was released 12 years ago, in 2008). The next generation workforce is also entering the market, and now I’m talking about the Gen Z people who doesn’t know about the world without internet and computers. Millennials are entering their 30’s, time to move on and stop being scared of us.

All this, and the fact that >80% of the population in Sweden have access to a smartphone, means that we need to expect more from our users today than we could 10-15 years ago. We can also expect that they know what services they need, e.g. Spotify might not be a corporate app but might be something that your users’ need to stay focused (and paying for them self). Simply put, we have more experienced users today and we need to meet their expectations, not limit them from reaching their full potential. Simply put, using a computer to perform tasks is not a new thing anymore.

The use of such apps leaves a grey-area between what is work and what is personal. E.g. Spotify might be something your user is using to stay focused to do their work better, while paying for it as a personal service, and it’s not accessing any corporate data since its running in an isolated container (I’m intentionally leaving out network from this). Since this is a subscription service, purchased privately and consumed on personal devices, this won’t require any support from you and the user won’t expect it either. They application will also be “owned” by their personal account, not the corporate one.

What do we support?

One thing I’ve heard from several different customers/partners/peers is “What if they call and want support on application X, we must support whatever we allow on the device”.

My usual answer to this is “Do you support Angry Birds on iPhone?”. The most common answer is no.

Why? Well, it’s not a corporate app. Neither is Spotify, Netflix, WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter is a corporate app. UNLESS you make it available in the Microsoft Store for Business.

If you make it available in Microsoft Store for Business, that means that you as a company acquired a license for it and you actively made it available for the user. The same goes for applications from Apple AppStore (using VPP) and Managed Google Play. Any application you mark as a corporate approved application, you should expect your users to expect support on.

What about everything else in the app-stores? Well simply tell your users that this is not an application approved for your company and they need to reach out to the application developer/vendor for support, its simply “not supported” by your organisation. Like I said earlier, you don’t support all +130 million applications in the iOS AppStore, do you?

What does real life users expect?

By talking to network of friends, customers, peers, and former co-workers. What do they say?

Well it was a straightforward, non-statistical secured, answer:

We do not expect IT to help us out with applications we obtain for “personal use”

This means if they have problems with e.g. Spotify or any other applications which is not work relate nor sanctioned by/licensed by their employer, they won’t call IT. This is also something I can confirm as previously being the operations manager for the client platform in a global company, support for app-store apps is not a huge problem. And if you managed the expectations from your users in an effective way, you will be fine.

Let’s face it, the way we use technology today is different from that it was 5-10 years ago. We need to adapt.

The go-do…

What’s the go-do from this? Well, I’m not saying that you should make this available for all users tomorrow but consider piloting this outside the comfort of IT and evaluate the outcome before deciding. This might be an appreciated addition to your offering towards your end-users.

What are your thoughts? Do you see the app-stores on the different platforms as hidden potential or a potential support problem? Let me know in the comments.

Categories
Intune Modern Workplace

Why should you care about your phones?

(Originally published on LinkedIn)

By now you have gone through several generations of different practices on how and why to manage your computers, through a Microsoft product such as #ConfigMgr or a third-party product like SpecOps. For Windows, managing the device is a standard procedure and most larger organizations have some sort of management.

But what about your mobile devices such as your iPhones, iPads, and Samsung phones? Are those managed?

Why should you manage your mobile devices?

There are a lot of arguments why you should manage your mobile devices such as keeping an inventory, security, and ease of use.

But why should you care? What’s in it for you?

Knowing what devices you have in your organisation, who has them and if they are used are a few things that are increasingly important in a cloud-centric world. Devices are no longer only living on the corporate network, and the mobile devices never even made it there.

Adding management to your mobile devices can provide you with many benefits:

  • You can keep track of what devices are used by whom
  • You can utilize a mobile device as a factor in multi authentication scenarios
  • Ease the access to corporate data for your end-users
  • Distribute software and settings (much like on Windows), making the user experience smoother.
  • Ensure that your corporate data is safe

There are several other arguments for this as well.

But to keep it short. You will gain control of what devices are used, by whom, in your organization. These devices are also most likely accessing corporate data, and it’s a clever idea to manage data on these devices (to minimize incidents).

What’s in it for the user?

So why would your users care about if their device is managed or not?

A lot has happened since the iPhone was introduced back in 2007. The services available, the threat level, user behaviour and more. We have also gained a lot of possibilities during the last couple of years when it comes to mobile device management. There are constantly new settings being available to manage to make the end-user onboarding better. We can define email account, deploy corporate Wi-Fi credentials, install business-related apps and much more. But we can also enforce security measurements such as PIN-code and encryption.

Lately, we are also able to set trust to a device, by registering it in Azure AD and by doing that claiming it to be trusted and not enforcing MFA each time it the end-user is trying to access the corporate sphere. Doing this will increase the user experience and at the same time ensure that you obtain a higher level of security since you know what device your data is accessed from.

One other important thing in this for the end-user is that you can now remotely assist the user in case they lose their device PIN or need some other help. For some platforms, there are even remote tools through e.g. TeamViewer so that your support team can see what the user is seeing.

So why should you care?

Since the behaviour of the workforce is changing. The term “mobile-first” isn’t applicable anymore, but if you look at what devices people are using, they spend a lot of time with their smartphones. So why wouldn’t you secure this device and make it member of your IT environment? There is a lot of hidden potentials here, where you can provide a valuable experience throughout the whole life cycle of the device (from onboarding to decommissioning).

Especially if you look at the younger generations of your workforce, they are more heavily dependent on their mobile device and if you are not on top of this on an early stage you will have a lot of catching up to do.

And just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you manage your mobile devices as you do with your on-prem computers. Adopt to what the mobile device management world looks like and protect the right things (data and identity), having the device locked down and not useful from an end-user point of view will only make your end-users find ways around it and you are back to square one.

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment!