Microsoft Intune: Integrate Windows Store for business

For a while now we have been waiting for the integration between Windows Store for business and Microsoft Intune. This integration will allow you to deploy purchased or free apps from the Windows Store through the Intune admin console. This blogpost is a simple guide on how to set up this integration and deploy your first app. My example is going to use the Intune Company Portal app as an example. 

Set up the integration:

The first we need to do is to go to the Windows Store for Business and integrate with Intune. This is done at the business store side. Go to https://businessstore.microsoft.com/  and log in with you admin work credentials. Go through the steps to enable the business store for your company. Then you go to Settings – Management tools and click on  “Add a management tool”  and search for Microsoft Intune.

After you have added Intune and made sure it’s status is activated you can go and search for your app.

I am adding the Company Portal app. Just make sure to select Offline on the license. This is because only offline licensed apps will be syncronized with Intune.

Now we can go into the Intune admin console and set up the integration. You open the admin console at https://manage.microsoft.com and go to Admin – Mobile Device Management – Windows and Store for Business.

Here you configure the sync with Business Store.

And just wait for the initial sync to finish. It should be pretty fast. Now the status on your page should look like this:

At this page you can later do a manual sync, the automatic sync will run twice a day.

Deployment of Store for Business Apps

Now we need to go to the Apps section of the console and go into Volume Purchased Apps. You should now see the apps you have selected for offline use in the Windows Store for Business.

To deploy the apps you will need to mark the app and click on manage deployment. You choose what user group (can not be deployed to device groups) you will deploy the app too. I am chosing All Users as I want all users to have the company portal app on their enrolled device. This app is both for mobile and pc version of Windows 10 so it should be pushed out to both Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile devices.

As you now see you only have 3 deployment actions available. Either Not Applicable, Required install or Uninstall. If you chose Not Applicable nothing happens, the other 2 options are kind of obvious.

Thats it. Now you have deployed your first app directly from the business store. At the same page you will also see status of license usage and deployments.

What I truly find useful with this feature is that we now can make mandatory distrubutions of apps from the Windows Store and we can easily push out the Company Portal app to all enrolled windows devices.

Filed under: AzureAD, Cloud, Deployment, Enrollment, Intune, Windows 10 Tagged: Deployment, EMS, Intune, Lumagate, Microsoft, Windows 10, Windows Store for Business