Cloud GPO

[the_dude]

I'm looking for an alternative to GPO that can be deployed in the cloud. PolicyPak is one product that we are looking at. What other options are out there? Intune seems to be lacking in that regard. Thanks.

[Jcx500]

Intune can have admx uploaded i believe ? Edited November 5, 2020 by Jcx500

[Wubbalubbadub]

We are in the process of trialing intune. I think it seems pretty good to be honest. What is it lacking?

[TechMonkey]

We looked at inTune a few years ago so only used it on a few devices but it has come on leaps and bounds so we are going to start afresh and maybe look at all devices going on it. We shall see.

[jnfarmer]

Intune also. Once I can figure out how to activate a Windows 10 device (I seem to be the only person in the entire world that can't) We'll be moving over to it!

[the_dude]

Intune is great, but it lacks the granular control that you have with GPO. It has some control, but not on the level of GPO. PolicyPak seems to fill that void, looking to see if there are other options out there. Thanks.

[jnfarmer]

Yes, true. But combined with Autopilot, makes it easier to set up and deliver to the user. Also it's just a button to reset the device rather than the rigmarole of a rebuild etc. Getting to grips with no OUs has been fun but using dynamic groups with regex gets round that a bit.

 

Where we have devices that are shared, because staff and pupils roam, you would want more granular control to stop someone breaking something that effects someone else. Where the devices going into Intune are mostly laptops, therefore one-to-one, quite frankly, if someone wants to mess around with something on their device, the only person they're going to effect is themselves, so it's their own damn problem.

Edited November 5, 2020 by jnfarmer

[the_dude]

Right! I guess I'm probably just a control freak.

[Wubbalubbadub]

Right! I guess I'm probably just a control freak.

I said the same to myself as I investigated intune...

[jnfarmer]

I felt the same way too. It's taking me the best part of 2 years to come to terms with it!

[sunny4al]

We have been looking at migrating our on Premises system to cloud throughout last year. Predominant reason was future proofing against any future lockdowns. We quickly realized that we cannot achieve a 100 percent M365-azure move due to issues around authentication for on premises devices such as managed printers. We decided to implement a predominant cloud system with on-premises presence. We did purchase PolicyPak MDM version and have to say it has been really useful and quick in delivering the familiar settings to end client. We tried the import of ADMX files however the process was time consuming and difficult to manage. We have been using Gsuite for a number of years and have decided to fully migrate over to M365 as we feel it is scalable and Endpoint manager does provide management of a number of popular platforms. We have managed to create configuration for android, apple and windows devices through endpoint as we wanted to centralize and reduce on multiple management software.

 

We are in the process of preparing a full scale Trust migration this summer holidays once we deliver the starter training to staff post Easter holidays. We hope for it to go well however all of us know there are always anomalies that we miss out but hoping to achieve at least the high value priorities.

[KK20]

the main problem for us is the "lag" between changing a setting in 365 and it taking effect. It can be annoying, especially when staff dont understand why you cant just "flick a switch" to do something (like we used to)

[sunny4al]

The lag is certainly something we had to deal with and that is one of the reasons we went with PolicyPak. During the enrollment process we force PolicyPak install and the necessary configuration initially. We do warn staff about the lag however so far this year it has been better for us rather than last year. We have enrolled all the staff laptops, ipads and android devices. Android seems to be doing a lot better in bringing down the apps than ipads. Windows machines used to take 4 to 5 hours but recently they have been completing the software install within the hour.