How to manage volume purchased apps from the Microsoft Store for Business with Microsoft Intune

Important

The Microsoft Store for Business connector is no longer accessible in the Microsoft Intune admin center. Apps added from the Microsoft Store for Business or Microsoft Store for Education will no longer sync with Intune. Apps that have previously synced will continue to be available and deploy to devices and users. For related information, see Deprecation of Microsoft Store for Business and Education.

The Microsoft Store for Business gives you a place to find and purchase apps for your organization, individually, or in volume. By connecting the store to Microsoft Intune, you can manage volume-purchased apps from the portal. For example:

• You can synchronize the list of apps you have purchased (or that are free) from the store with Intune.
• Apps that are synchronized appear in the Microsoft Intune admin center; you can assign these apps like any other apps.
• Both Online and Offline licensed versions of Apps are synchronized to Intune. App names will be appended with "Online" or "Offline" in the portal.
• You can track how many licenses are available, and how many are being used in the admin center.
• Intune blocks assignment and installation of apps if there are an insufficient number of licenses available.
• Intune will revoke app licenses for apps managed by Microsoft Store for Business when the user is deleted from Azure AD.

Before you start

Important

The retirement of the Microsoft Store for Business and the Microsoft Store for Education, originally scheduled for March 31, 2023, has been postponed. Until they are retired, admins can still leverage the connection to Store for Business and Education from their UEM solution to deploy apps to managed Windows 11 devices.

Review the following information before you start syncing and assigning apps from the Microsoft Store for Business:

• Configure Intune as the mobile device management authority for your organization.
• You must have signed up for an account on the Microsoft Store for Business.
• Once you have associated a Microsoft Business Store account with Intune, you cannot change to a different account in the future.
• Apps purchased from the store cannot be manually added to or deleted from Intune. They can only be synchronized with the Microsoft Store for Business.
• Both online and offline licensed apps that you have purchased from the Microsoft Store for Business are synced into Intune. You can then deploy these apps to device groups or user groups.
• Online app installations are managed by the store.
• Offline apps that are free of charge can also be synced to Intune. These apps are installed by Intune, not by the store.
• To use this capability, devices must be joined to Active Directory Domain Services, Azure AD joined, or workplace-joined.
• Enrolled devices must be using the 1511 release of Windows 10 or later.

Note

Online Microsoft Store for Business apps can be used only for user context install; that is, when deployed through Intune, you need to target user groups. Device licensed offline Microsoft Store for Business apps can be installed in device context; that is, when deployed through Intune, you can target device groups as well as user groups.

Note

If you disable access to the Store on managed devices (either manually, via policy or Group Policy), Online licensed apps will fail to install.

Associate your Microsoft Store for Business account with Intune

Before you enable synchronization in the Microsoft Intune admin center, you must configure your store account to use Intune as a management tool:

1. Ensure that you sign into the Microsoft Store for Business using the same tenant account you use to sign into Intune.
2. In the Business Store, choose the Manage tab, select Settings, and choose the Distribute tab.
3. If you don't specifically have Microsoft Intune available as a mobile device management tool, choose Add management tool to add Microsoft Intune. If you don't have Microsoft Intune activated as your mobile device management tool, click Activate next to Microsoft Intune. Note that you should activate Microsoft Intune rather than Microsoft Intune Enrollment.

Note

Previously you could associate only one management tool to assign apps with the Microsoft Store for Business. Now you can associate multiple management tools with the store, for example, Intune and Configuration Manager.

Continue to set up synchronization in the Microsoft Intune admin center.

Configure synchronization

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Intune admin center.
2. Select Tenant administration > Connectors and tokens > Microsoft Store for Business.
3. Click Enable.
4. If you haven't already done so, click the link to sign up for the Microsoft Store for Business and associate your account as detailed previously.
5. From the Language drop-down list, choose the language in which apps from the Microsoft Store for Business are displayed in the portal. Regardless of the language in which they are displayed, they are installed in the end user's language when available.
6. Click Sync to get the apps you've purchased from the Microsoft Store into Intune.

Synchronize apps

If you've already associated your Microsoft Store for Business account with your Intune admin credentials, you can manually sync your Microsoft Store for Business apps with Intune using the following steps.

1. Select Tenant administration > Connectors and tokens > Microsoft Store for Business.
2. Click Sync to get the apps you've purchased from the Microsoft Store into Intune.

Note

Apps with encrypted app packages are currently not supported and will not be synchronized to Intune.

Assign apps

You assign apps from the store in the same way you assign any other Intune app. For more information, see How to assign apps to groups with Microsoft Intune.

Offline apps can be targeted to user groups, device groups, or groups with users and devices. Offline apps can be installed for a specific user on a device or for all users on a device.

When you assign a Microsoft Store for Business app, a license is used by each user who installs the app. If you use all of the available licenses for an assigned app, you cannot assign any more copies. Take one of the following actions:

• Uninstall the app from some devices.
• Reduce the scope of the current assignment, targeting only the users you have sufficient licenses for.
• Buy more copies of the app from the Microsoft Store for Business.

Remove apps

To remove an app that is synced from the Microsoft Store for Business, you need to log into the Microsoft Store for Business and complete the following steps. The process is the same whether the app is free or not.

1. Ensure that you sign into the Microsoft Store for Business using the same tenant account you use to sign into Intune.
2. Look for the app that you want to remove by selecting Products & services > Apps & software and select it.
3. In the Users pane select all users, click on the ... symbol under the Actions column and choose to Reclaim license.
4. Open the Private store availability tab of the app and change its availability to No one.
5. Select the Product details link on the top and then select the ... button next to Install. If the previous steps have been completed successfully, a Remove product option will be available. Select Remove product to remove the app from the Microsoft Store for Business.
6. Sync the apps using the Microsoft for Business Store connector in Intune in order to remove the app from the list of Windows apps in Intune.

Next steps

• Manage volume-purchased apps and books with Microsoft Intune