The following procedures were created with the assistance of ControlUp field engineering to provide installation and configuration instructions for a Microsoft Intune Lab Setup with ControlUp Edge DX Agents to be deployed through Intune!
Before we get started, let me provide a bit of background information…
I was recently working with a customer who had 100 ControlUp Edge DX licenses and was in the process of expanding their environment into the thousands. In order to do that, and manage the Edge DX agents at scale, the customer needed assistance building an Application Package and deploying the agents through Microsoft Intune. While the initial setup looked like everything was going to work just fine, we encountered challenges with pending install, failure to deploy, and other issues that were eventually overcome. Reaching out to the ControlUp field engineering team, we were able to establish the setup procedures I’ll outline in this blog, which have been adapted from the ControlUp instructional video created by Trentent Tye, which can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/845405292?share=copy#t=56
Before we dive into the ControlUp EdgeDX Agent App Package and deployment through Microsoft Intune, let’s first take a minute to talk about environment prerequisites and basic setup instructions to get a functional Intune environment ready to use.
The Lab environment was established using a non-production Microsoft online tenant and e-mail addresses under the @youngtechx.com web domain, to avoid clashing with the production Microsoft tenant.
To get started, Microsoft 365 accounts were created through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center available here:
Microsoft Intune Plan 1 Device licenses were assigned as shown below. Note, all account usernames contain the ‘X’ in the domain name (@youngtechx.com).
To get started, navigate to the Intune admin center (manage.microsoft.com) and login with the primary Intune admin account (dane@youngtechx.com):
Supply the password.
Click the checkbox and click Yes.
The following represents a brand new, unconfigured Microsoft Intune admin center:
On the left, navigate to Tenant administration:
Confirm the Tenant name lists the youngtechx.com domain and that MDM authority is set to Microsoft Intune:
From a test device, open the Microsoft Store:
Search for Company Portal and click Get:
Once downloaded, click Open:
Sign in:
Click Work or school account if prompted:
Enter the credentials:
Click OK:
Hang tight while devices is enrolling:
Click Done:
Click the message to begin setup:
Click Next to connect the device to work:
Click Connect:
Enter the username (e-mail address) and click Next:
If prompted to enter the MDM Server URL, type manage.microsoft.com and click Next:
Click Work or school account if prompted:
Enter the credentials:
Click the checkbox and click Yes:
Click Got it:
Confirm the device is setup and click Next:
Confirm all green checkboxes and click Done:
Confirm the Device is listed in the Company Portal ‘Home’ screen:
Navigate back to the Intune admin center (manage.microsoft.com) and click Devices on the left:
Click Windows Devices:
You will notice that the device does not show in the Intune admin center until a Company Portal Sync has been performed. Confirming on the Home screen, you’ll notice the device says ‘Never checked’ as a Sync is not initiated automatically.
Navigate to Settings in the Company Portal and click Sync:
The Sync operation can take seconds or several minutes to complete, do not navigate from this screen while performing the Sync:
Under the Sync button, you’ll see confirmation when the Sync was completed, including a date and time stamp:
Navigating back to the Home screen shows the device Checked less than a minute ago:
Navigating back to the Windows devices section of Intune admin center, click Refresh to update the device list:
Within minutes, the device will show up and report its status. Click the Device name (hyperlink) to review:
Device details are shown under the Device:
In the next section, we’ll show how to setup the ControlUp EdgeDX Agent to be deployed to Intune enrolled devices.
ControlUp EdgeDX App Deployment Instructions through Intune
ControlUp EdgeDX app deployment procedures provided below have been adapted from the ControlUp instructional video created by Trentent Tye, which can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/845405292?share=copy#t=56
To deploy the EdgeDX Agent through Intune, there are some prerequisite steps that will be covered. First, the silent installation string will need to be obtained, which will be used later in the procedures.
To obtain the silent installation string, a ControlUp admin will need to launch ControlUp Solve (solve.controlup.com) and click the Edge DX icon on the left navigation (looks like a laptop):
Next, click the Settings (gear looking) icon in the top right and go to Downloads:
Under the Downloads page, click Windows Agent and the Tenant Name, Device Registration Code, and Command line install string will be displayed. For security reasons, the information below has been obfuscated. Click the Copy icon highlighted in the Green Box below to copy the Command line install string, and place this in a Notepad document for reference later in this procedure.
While on the Downloads screen, click the Download button and save the agentmanagersetup.msi package somewhere that can be used in a later step.
Next, navigate to the following URL to download the Intune app prep tool:
https://github.com/microsoft/Microsoft-Win32-Content-Prep-Tool/blob/master/IntuneWinAppUtil.exe
To learn more about this tool and its use, review Readme documentation here: https://github.com/microsoft/Microsoft-Win32-Content-Prep-Tool/
Click the three dots and select Download to grab the IntuneWinAppUtil.exe file:
Click the Open Folder icon the in the browser download screen to open the location where IntuneWinAppUtil.exe was downloaded:
In the Downloads folder, create a new folder called ‘WorkingDirectory’. We’ll reference this path in a future step.
If not already downloaded, grab the EdgeDX agentmanagersetup.msi from the following path:
https://downloads.sip.controlup.com/agentmanagersetup.msi
Right click this file that was downloaded and click Cut.
Navigate into the WorkingDirectory folder and click Paste:
Confirm the only file in the new directory is the agentmanagersetup.msi. Right click the Start Menu and open Terminal (Admin). On Windows 10 or other devices, you can launch CMD Run As Admin to perform the same process covered in the next steps:
Click Yes to the UAC prompt:
Once launched, change the directory (cd) to the top level folder where IntuneWinAppUtil.exe is located.
Run the following command to target the WorkingDirectory and agentmanagersetup.msi located within.
.\IntuneWinAppUtil.exe -c .\WorkingDirectory\ -s agentmanagersetup.msi -o .\
Before running the command, you’ll notice only the IntuneWinAppUtil and WorkingDirectory files and folders.
After running the command, you’ll notice a new file was created: agentmanagersetup.intunewin
This file will be uploaded to Intune to create the Win32 App package.
Next, we’ll download a ControlUp Logo file that can be used to personalize the App in Intune. In a Browser, navigate to:
https://cu2018.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/brand-5.png
Right click and select Save image as:
Provide the file name: ControlUpLogo. Click Save.
In the Intune admin center, navigate to Apps on the left blade. Click Windows under By platform:
Under Windows apps click Add:
From the App type drop-down look toward the bottom and select ‘Windows app (Win32)’:
Click Select:
On the next screen, click Select app package file:
Click the folder looking icon to browse for the App package file created using the IntuneWinAppUtil tool:
Navigate to the agentmanagersetup.intunewin file created using the IntuneWinAppUtil tool:
Click OK:
Supply the following App information as follows:
Name: ControlUp Digital Experience Assistant
Description: ControlUp EdgeDX Agent
Publisher: ControlUp
Category: Computer management
Show this as a featured app in the Company Portal: Yes
Information URL: http://www.controlup.com
Privacy URL: https://www.controlup.com/privacy-policy/controlup-privacy-policy/
Developer: ControlUp
Owner: ControlUp
All other fields are optional or do not need to be modified from the defauls.
Click Select image next to Logo:
Click the Folder icon to browse for the Logo file downloaded previously:
Select the Logo file and click Open.
A preview of the Logo file will be displayed and the popup will indicate Upload Completed. Click OK:
Review all settings and ensure the Logo is displayed properly. Click Next:
In the next screen (Program), you will need to paste the silent Command Line Install parameters that were obtained previously. My recommendation is to copy only the portion of the command following the /qn flag of the msiexec Install command. Example of the full command is shown below for reference:
Install command (Example): msiexec /i agentmanagersetup.msi /qn DEVREGCODE=1fde7xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxf88b TENANT=companyname.sip.controlup.com ALLUSERS=1
Leave the Uninstall command as default, as that MSI Product Code should be automatically detected.
Leave all other settings as default, auto populated. Under the Device restart behavior drop-down, select ‘No specific action’. Review the settings match as shown below and click Next:
In the next screen (Requirements), specify the following:
Operating system architecture: 64-bit
Minimum operating system: Windows 10 1607
Disk space required (MB): 50
Physical memory required (MB): 100
Minimum number of logical processors required: 1
Click Next:
Select Manually configure detection rules and click Add:
Select MSI from the drop-down:
The MSI product code should be automatically populated. Click OK:
Click Next:
On the Dependencies screen, click Next (Default settings):
On the Supersedence screen, click Next (Default settings):
On the Assignments screen, installations can be filtered to specific user or device groups as either Required (Auto-install) or Available (self-service). Select the appropriate groups for each. For this environment, we selected Add all devices under the Required section, to push the EdgeDX App to all enrolled Intune devices. On the far right, click the hyperlink under Delivery optimization:
Select the drop-down and change Delivery optimization priority to ‘Content download in foreground’:
Confirm foreground is selected and click OK:
Review the Assignments screen and click Next:
Review the complete set of App settings on the summary screen and click Create:
Scroll down to review additional settings including the Assignment:
Click Create and you’ll see Saving application notifications in the top right:
Once completed, you’ll see a notification in the top right Application created:
Click Devices on the left navigation. During the creation process, the IntunePackage.intunewin file will be uploaded, and a notification will be displayed in the top right to show progress:
Under the Devices section, click Windows:
Navigate to the device that was previously enrolled, and click the Device name hyperlink:
Click Managed Apps in the left navigation:
At first, no Managed Apps will be displayed, as the device has not synchronized to see the new assignment:
On the device, launch the Company Portal and go to Settings:
Click Sync:
The Sync process takes seconds or minutes to complete:
Once Synchronized, the last sync date and time will be updated:
Depending on a number of environment conditions, the Managed Apps section will eventually show the ControlUp Digital Experience Assistant Application changes to a Pending Installation or Installed status as shown below:
On the device, navigate to Programs and Features (appwiz.cpl) to confirm the ControlUp Agent Manager and ControlUp Edge DX – SIP Agent have been successfully installed:
This enrollment and application deployment process can be repeated as many times as is necessary to complete the installation and configuration. By this point, the endpoints will start showing up and reporting data through Solve, demonstrating their functionality when deployed through Intune. And…That’s a wrap!
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Dane Young, MBA
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