Device compliance policies in Microsoft Intune (2024)

Mobile device management (MDM) solutions like Intune can help protect organizational data by requiring users and devices to meet some requirements. In Intune, this feature is called compliance policies.

Compliance policies in Intune:

• Define the rules and settings that users and devices must meet to be compliant.
• Include actions that apply to devices that are noncompliant. Actions for noncompliance can alert users to the conditions of noncompliance and safeguard data on noncompliant devices.
• Can be combined with Conditional Access, which can then block users and devices that don't meet the rules.
• Can override the configuration of settings that you also manage through device configuration policies. To learn more about conflict resolution for policies, see Compliance and device configuration policies that conflict.

There are two parts to compliance policies in Intune:

• Compliance policy settings – Tenant-wide settings that are like a built-in compliance policy that every device receives. Compliance policy settings set a baseline for how compliance policy works in your Intune environment, including whether devices that haven’t received any device compliance policies are compliant or noncompliant.

• Device compliance policy – Platform-specific rules you configure and deploy to groups of users or devices. These rules define requirements for devices, like minimum operating systems or the use of disk encryption. Devices must meet these rules to be considered compliant.

Like other Intune policies, compliance policy evaluations for a device depend on when the device checks-in with Intune, and policy and profile refresh cycles.

Compliance policy settings

Compliance policy settings are tenant-wide settings that determine how Intune’s compliance service interacts with your devices. These settings are distinct from the settings you configure in a device compliance policy.

To manage the compliance policy settings, sign in to Microsoft Intune admin center and go to Endpoint security > Device compliance > Compliance policy settings.

Compliance policy settings include the following settings:

• Mark devices with no compliance policy assigned as

  This setting determines how Intune treats devices that haven't been assigned a device compliance policy. This setting has two values:

  • Compliant (default): This security feature is off. Devices that aren’t sent a device compliance policy are considered compliant.
  • Not compliant: This security feature is on. Devices that haven’t received a device compliance policy are considered noncompliant.

  If you use Conditional Access with your device compliance policies, change this setting to Not compliant to ensure that only devices that are confirmed as compliant can access your resources.

  If an end user isn't compliant because a policy isn't assigned to them, then the Company Portal app shows No compliance policies have been assigned.

• Compliance status validity period (days)

  Specify a period in which devices must successfully report on all their received compliance policies. If a device fails to report its compliance status for a policy before the validity period expires, the device is treated as noncompliant.

  By default, the period is set to 30 days. You can configure a period from 1 to 120 days.

  You can view details about a devices compliance to the validity period setting. Sign in to Microsoft Intune admin center and go to Devices > Monitor > Setting compliance. This setting has a name of Is active in the Setting column. For more information about this and related compliance status views, see Monitor device compliance.

Device compliance policies

Intune device compliance policies:

• Define the rules and settings that users and managed devices must meet to be compliant. Examples of rules include requiring devices run a minimum OS version, not being jail-broken or rooted, and being at or under a threat level as specified by threat management software you’ve integrated with Intune.
• Support actions that apply to devices that don’t meet your compliance rules. Examples of actions include being remotely locked, or sending a device user email about the device status so they can fix it.
• Deploy to users in user groups or devices in device groups. When a compliance policy is deployed to a user, all the user's devices are checked for compliance. Using device groups in this scenario helps with compliance reporting.

If you use Conditional Access, your Conditional Access policies can use your device compliance results to block access to resources from noncompliant devices.

The available settings you can specify in a device compliance policy depend on the platform type you select when you create a policy. Different device platforms support different settings, and each platform type requires a separate policy.

The following subjects link to dedicated articles for different aspects of device configuration policy.

• Actions for noncompliance - Each device compliance policy includes one or more actions for noncompliance. These actions are rules that get applied to devices that don’t meet the conditions you set in the policy.

  By default, each device compliance policy includes the action to mark a device as noncompliant if it fails to meet a policy rule. The policy then applies to the device any additional actions for noncompliance that you’ve configured, based on the schedules you set for those actions.

  Actions for noncompliance can help alert users when their device isn’t compliant, or safeguard data that might be on a device. Examples of actions include:

  • Sending email alerts to users and groups with details about the noncompliant device. You might configure the policy to send an email immediately upon being marked as noncompliant, and then again, periodically, until the device becomes compliant.
  • Remotely lock devices that have been noncompliant for some time.
  • Retire devices after they’ve been noncompliant for some time. This action marks a qualifying device as ready to be retired. An admin can then view a list of devices marked for retirement and must take an explicit action to retire one or more devices. Retiring a device removes the device from Intune management and removes all company data from the device. For more information about this action, see Available actions for noncompliance.

• Create a policy – With the information in this article, you can review prerequisites, work through the options to configure rules, specify actions for noncompliance, and assign the policy to groups. This article also includes information about policy refresh times.

  View the device compliance settings for the different device platforms:

  • Android device administrator
  • Android Enterprise
  • Android Open Source Project (AOSP)
  • iOS
  • Linux
  • macOS
  • Windows Holographic for Business
  • Windows 8.1 and later

    Important

    On October 22, 2022, Microsoft Intune ended support for devices running Windows 8.1. Technical assistance and automatic updates on these devices aren't available.

    If you currently use Windows 8.1, then we recommend moving to Windows 10/11 devices. Microsoft Intune has built-in security and device features that manage Windows 10/11 client devices.

  • Windows 10/11

• Custom compliance settings – With custom compliance settings you can expand on Intune’s built-in device compliance options. Custom settings provide flexibility to base compliance on the settings that are available on a device without having to wait for Intune to add those settings.

  You can use custom compliance settings with the following platforms:

  • Linux – Ubuntu Desktop, version 20.04 LTS and 22.04 LTS
  • Windows 10/11

Monitor compliance status

Intune includes a device compliance dashboard that you use to monitor the compliance status of devices, and to drill-in to policies and devices for more information. To learn more about this dashboard, see Monitor device compliance.

Integrate with Conditional Access

When you use Conditional Access, you can configure your Conditional Access policies to use the results of your device compliance policies to determine which devices can access your organizational resources. This access control is in addition to and separate from the actions for noncompliance that you include in your device compliance policies.

When a device enrolls in Intune it registers in Microsoft Entra ID. The compliance status for devices is reported to Microsoft Entra ID. If your Conditional Access policies have Access controls set to Require device to be marked as compliant, Conditional access uses that compliance status to determine whether to grant or block access to email and other organization resources.

If you’ll use device compliance status with Conditional Access policies, review how your tenant has configured Mark devices with no compliance policy assigned as, which you manage under Compliance policy settings.

For more information about using Conditional Access with your device compliance policies, see Device-based Conditional Access

Learn more about Conditional Access in the Microsoft Entra documentation:

• What is Conditional Access
• What is a device identity

Reference for non-compliance and Conditional Access on the different platforms

The following table describes how noncompliant settings are managed when a compliance policy is used with a Conditional Access policy.

• Remediated: The device operating system enforces compliance. For example, the user is forced to set a PIN.

• Quarantined: The device operating system doesn't enforce compliance. For example, Android and Android Enterprise devices don't force the user to encrypt the device. When the device isn't compliant, the following actions take place:

  • If a Conditional Access policy applies to the user, the device is blocked.
  • The Company Portal app notifies the user about any compliance problems.

Next steps

• Create and deploy policy and review prerequisites
• Monitor device compliance
• Common questions, issues, and resolutions with device policies and profiles in Microsoft Intune
• Reference for policy entities has information about the Intune Data Warehouse policy entities