New laptops arrive ready
A new starter opens the box, signs in with their work account, and the machine sets itself up with your settings and applications. Nobody spends half a day building it by hand.
Microsoft 365
Devices you actually control
Enrolment, encryption, updates and application deployment through Intune, and new machines that configure themselves through Autopilot instead of being built by hand. TechTruePoint sets this up for Microsoft 365 businesses in Dallas-Fort Worth and across the US, with every device managed remotely. Get a quote with your device count.
Device management is the difference between owning a laptop and controlling it. Enrolled devices can be checked, configured, updated and, when one goes missing, locked or wiped. Unenrolled devices are trusted on the strength of whoever set them up.
The question worth asking is not whether you want managed devices. It is what you would do tonight if a laptop with a signed in mailbox and a synced OneDrive folder did not come home.
What changes for the business
The same security settings everywhere
Encryption, updates, screen lock and firewall set once as policy, rather than depending on who set up which machine and how careful they were that day.
Devices you can manage from anywhere
Check, update, lock or wipe a laptop without it being in the office. That matters more when half the team works from home.
Access that depends on a healthy device
With Conditional Access in Entra ID, company mail and files can be limited to devices that are enrolled, encrypted and up to date. A stolen password alone stops being enough.
What gets set up
- Intune set up in the tenant. Enrolment switched on properly, the right licences confirmed, and the groups policy is aimed at decided before anything is enforced.
- Enrolment. Devices joined to the tenant so they are visible, with a policy that applies rather than a spreadsheet that lists them.
- Existing devices brought under management. The laptops already out there enrolled without wiping them, where the hardware and the current setup allow it. Where they do not, we will say which machines need a reset and why.
- Disk encryption. BitLocker on Windows, with the recovery keys held by the business rather than by whoever built the machine.
- Configuration and compliance policy. What a device must have to be considered healthy, and what happens when it is not.
- Windows Update policy. Updates that install on a schedule the business chose, rather than whenever somebody clicks "remind me later" for the eleventh time.
- Application deployment. The applications people need arriving on the device instead of being installed by hand and forgotten on the next machine.
- Autopilot enrolment. A new laptop that arrives at the person and configures itself when they sign in.
- Conditional Access tied to compliance. Sign in to company data only from devices that meet the policy, switched on after a pilot rather than on day one.
- Mobile application protection. Company mail and files contained on personal phones, removable without touching anything personal.
- Retirement and wipe. A defined way to remove company data from a device, which is the step people find they need at the worst possible moment.
Where this usually starts
Almost nobody arrives asking for Intune. They arrive with one of these.
A laptop went missing
And the honest answer to "can we wipe it" turned out to be no. This is the most common trigger and the most expensive lesson.
An insurance questionnaire
Asking whether devices are managed and encrypted. The technical controls behind those questions are covered on the controls insurers ask about.
Somebody left with a company laptop
And it is still syncing. That is the device half of former employee access.
New starters take half a day each
Because every machine is built by hand, slightly differently, and the differences turn into support calls for the next two years.
The tenant was inherited
And nobody knows which devices are enrolled, or whether any are. If you are not sure who administers Microsoft 365 at all, start with tenant takeover and cleanup, because device policy needs an admin account the business owns.
How the work runs
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Find out what exists
How many devices, who owns them, what is already enrolled, and which are personal.
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Agree what should be enforced
This is a business decision, not a technical one. Policy that fights how people work gets worked around.
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Pilot on a few machines
Including at least one belonging to somebody who will tell you honestly if it is annoying.
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Roll out in waves
Not everybody on the same afternoon.
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Document it and hand it over
Including where the encryption recovery keys live, which is the detail people wish they had written down.
Who this is for
- Company laptops that were handed out but never managed.
- A business that has to answer questions about encryption or device control.
- New starters where setting up a machine is a half day job.
- Company mail on personal phones with no way to remove it.
When this is not the right fit
- A business with two laptops and no plans to grow. The overhead may exceed the benefit and we will say so.
- Anyone wanting to monitor what staff do on their personal phones. That is not what this is and we would not set it up.
- Environments that need a full desktop management platform beyond Microsoft 365.
What TechTruePoint can help with
Usually part of a bigger piece:
- The device half of a tenant review, where enrolment status is one of the twelve areas.
- Joiner and leaver handling, so a device is issued and recovered as part of a process.
- Identity work, because device policy and Conditional Access are more useful together.
- Ongoing Microsoft 365 administration, so devices are issued and retired as people join and leave.
- The same device work for businesses across the metroplex, done remotely, as described on our Dallas-Fort Worth Microsoft 365 page.
Common questions
Do we need Intune if everyone already has a work laptop?
Handing somebody a laptop is not the same as managing it. Without enrolment you cannot confirm the disk is encrypted, cannot push an update, and cannot do anything at all if it is left in a taxi.
Whether that matters depends on what is on the laptop. For a business handling customer records or payment details, it usually matters more than the owner expects.
What does Autopilot actually change?
A new laptop arrives at the person, not at you. They sign in with their work account and the device configures itself: policies, applications, encryption, printers.
The alternative is somebody spending half a day setting it up by hand, differently each time, which is where the inconsistencies that cause support calls come from.
Can you manage personal phones without taking them over?
Yes, and this is usually the right answer. Company data on a personal phone can be contained so that work mail and files are protected and can be removed, without the business touching photos, messages or apps.
People are far more willing to accept that arrangement when it is explained properly, so it is worth explaining rather than announcing.
We have a mix of Windows and Mac. Does that work?
Both can be enrolled and managed. What differs is which controls are available on each, and that gap is worth knowing about before you promise a uniform policy to an auditor or an insurer.
We would rather tell you where the differences are than pretend the two are identical.
Related
Microsoft 365 Security and Cost Review
A fixed scope review of who has access, how sign-in is protected, where mail goes and what you are paying for.
Cybersecurity, identity and devices
MFA, access reviews, joiners and leavers, and devices that are managed rather than just handed out.
Microsoft 365 administration
Licences, accounts, security settings and the day to day of running a tenant.
Getting admin access back
For businesses that have lost Microsoft 365 admin access: finding the route back, then cleaning up and documenting what is in it.
Microsoft 365 in Dallas-Fort Worth
Microsoft 365 administration, cleanup, security and migrations for DFW businesses, done remotely.
Get a quote
Tell us what you need and we will map out the simplest path.
Get a Quote
Work out what is worth managing
Tell us how many laptops and phones there are and who owns them. Not everything needs enrolling, and we will say which parts do not.