Overview

🚀 Effective endpoint management begins with organized identity orchestration. In Microsoft Intune, groups serve as the primary vehicle for distributing policies, deploying applications, and securing corporate data. By categorizing identities into manageable units, IT administrators can precisely control access to both internal resources, such as local intranet sites, and external cloud services like SharePoint, SaaS platforms, and diverse web applications.

This guide focuses on the manual creation of a security group, a fundamental step within the broader Intune evaluation framework. Establishing these groups allows for a scalable “assign-once, manage-many” approach, ensuring that as users are added to the environment, they automatically inherit the appropriate security posture and toolsets required for their specific roles.

⚙️ Key Technical Details

Required Foundations

• Licensing: An active Microsoft Intune subscription is mandatory. For those in the evaluation phase, a free trial account provides full access to these features.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): To perform group management tasks, the administrator must be signed into the Microsoft Intune admin center with the Built-in User Administrator Microsoft Entra role.

Default Provisioning: All Users and All Devices

🛡️ Upon the initial setup of an Intune tenant, the service automatically generates two specialized groups: All Users and All Devices. These are not standard groups; they contain built-in optimizations designed for high-performance policy delivery. Use these when a configuration or application must be applied universally across the entire organization. For more granular control, custom groups are required.

Step-by-Step Security Group Provisioning

To establish a new group for targeted management, follow these technical steps:

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Intune admin center.
2. Go to Groups > New group.
3. Group type: From the dropdown menu, select Security.
4. Group name: Provide a unique identifier (e.g., Contoso Testers).
5. Group description: Enter a detailed summary of the group’s purpose for auditing and clarity.
6. Membership type: Select Assigned. This allows for the manual selection of specific identities.
7. Members: Click the link to open the member selection blade. Search for and select the users you wish to include (such as the test user created in previous evaluation steps).
8. Finalize by clicking Select > Create.

Lifecycle Management and “Soft-Delete” Logic

📅 Intune leverages Microsoft Entra ID’s “soft-delete” functionality. When a group is deleted, it enters a temporary suspended state. During this period:

• Intune displays the group status as “soft deleted” in the admin portal.
• Active policy and app assignments associated with the group are suppressed.
• If the group is restored within the Entra ID retention window, Intune automatically reinstates all previous policy and configuration assignments, minimizing administrative recovery efforts.

⚠️ Impact on Administration and Security

For the IT Administrator, mastering group creation is the catalyst for automation. Moving away from individual user assignments to group-based management reduces the risk of configuration drift and “permissions creep.”

• Scalability: Policies assigned to a group automatically apply to any new user added to that group, ensuring day-one productivity.
• Resource Security: By utilizing Security Groups, admins can implement Conditional Access policies that guard sensitive SaaS and web apps, ensuring only authorized group members can reach company data.
• Visibility: Having a clear naming convention and group structure within the All groups list provides a snapshot of the organization’s compliance and deployment footprint.