Analyze and migrate Group Policy using Group Policy analytics
Most organizations didn't move to cloud management overnight. Your company likely spent years defining Group Policy objects (GPOs) to manage Windows devices on-premises. You've configured security settings, applied software restrictions, and enforced compliance requirements through Group Policy. Now that you're moving to cloud-based management with Microsoft Intune, a critical question emerges: How do you migrate all those carefully crafted GPO settings to cloud-managed configuration profiles?
Group Policy analytics answers that question. This tool analyzes your existing on-premises GPOs and identifies which settings can migrate to Intune configuration profiles. Rather than manually recreating hundreds of policy settings in the cloud, you can use Group Policy analytics to automate much of the assessment work and guide your migration strategy.
Understanding Group Policy analytics
Group Policy analytics is a reporting and migration tool built into the Microsoft Intune admin center. It analyzes your on-premises Group Policy objects and provides detailed reports showing which settings are supported in Intune, which settings have migration recommendations, and which settings aren't supported in cloud management.
The tool works by examining GPO backup files you export from your on-premises Active Directory environment. It compares the settings in your GPOs against a database of Intune-supported settings. The result is a comprehensive view of your migration readiness and a clear roadmap for which policies to migrate first.
Group Policy analytics serves several purposes. First, it assesses your current state by showing exactly what Group Policy settings you're using across your organization. Second, it guides your cloud migration by identifying which policies have direct equivalents in Intune and which require workarounds or alternative solutions. Third, it prioritizes your migration efforts by highlighting high-impact policies that affect the most devices or users. The tool essentially gives you a migration playbook based on your actual policy configuration, not just theoretical guidelines.
Three categories of migration readiness
Group Policy analytics categorizes every GPO setting into one of three migration states. Understanding these categories helps you plan your migration approach.
Supported settings have direct equivalents in Intune configuration profiles or other cloud-based management tools. When you see a setting marked as supported, you know you can recreate it using Intune without losing functionality. These settings should be your first migration priority because they're straightforward equivalent replacements. You'll often find one-to-one mappings where the Intune setting accomplishes the same objective as the Group Policy equivalent.
Partially supported settings have cloud equivalents, but with some differences or limitations in what they can accomplish. For example, a Group Policy setting might control 10 different aspects of a feature, but the Intune equivalent controls only six of those aspects. These settings require your judgment: you'll migrate the setting to Intune and accept the limitation, or you'll find an alternative approach. The Group Policy analytics report explains the specific differences, helping you make informed decisions.
Not supported settings have no direct cloud equivalent. These settings are typically deprecated in modern Windows, specific to on-premises-only scenarios, or not currently supported by Intune. When you encounter unsupported settings, you have options: you might use Intune's custom profiles (OMA-URI) to deploy the setting anyway, find an alternative solution that achieves the same business objective, or accept that the setting won't apply to cloud-managed devices. The key is making a conscious decision rather than accidentally losing important configurations.
How Group Policy analytics guides your migration
Using Group Policy analytics involves a straightforward workflow. First, you export one or more GPO backup files from your on-premises Active Directory environment using the Group Policy Management Console. You can export all GPOs, or focus on critical ones, depending on your migration strategy.
Next, you upload these GPO backup files to Group Policy analytics in the Intune admin center. The tool analyzes the files and generates a detailed report. This report shows every setting in your GPOs, grouped by the three migration categories. You can filter and search the report to find specific settings important to your migration.
As you review the report, you'll discover that some of your policies map cleanly to Intune configuration profiles. These become your quick wins. Settings you can migrate immediately with full feature parity. Other settings will require more planning. You'll identify workarounds for partially supported settings and make decisions about unsupported settings.
The report also provides migration recommendations for each setting. These recommendations come from Microsoft's migration experience helping thousands of organizations move to cloud management. Rather than guessing the best Intune equivalent for a complex Group Policy setting, you see the recommended approach directly in the analytics report.
Building your migration strategy
Group Policy analytics isn't just a reporting tool, it's the foundation of a successful migration strategy. After analyzing your GPOs, organize your migration into phases. Phase one might include critical security settings that should migrate with full feature parity. Phase two includes business-critical settings that require some workaround planning. Later phases address less critical settings and those requiring significant redesign.
This phased approach prevents you from trying to migrate everything at once. Instead of a high-risk, all-or-nothing cutover, you gradually transition to cloud management while maintaining control and reducing the chance of disrupting your user base.
Group Policy analytics also helps with organization communication. Many IT teams use the analytics report to explain to stakeholders why certain policies won't work in cloud management in the same way, and what the alternative approach will be. The detailed, data-driven analysis carries more weight than general statements about cloud management limitations.
Why this matters for your organization
The time you invest in running Group Policy analytics pays dividends throughout your cloud migration. Rather than discovering halfway through your migration that you forgot about a critical policy, Group Policy analytics shows you the full scope of what needs to migrate before you begin. This visibility reduces surprises and rework.
The tool also preserves institutional knowledge. Your organization has implemented thousands of policy decisions over many years. Group Policy analytics ensures those decisions don't get lost in transition to cloud management. Instead, you migrate the important ones, make informed decisions about the others, and document your migration approach.
Now that you understand how to assess your on-premises policies for cloud migration, you're ready to create the actual Intune configuration profiles that will replace your Group Policy infrastructure. The settings you identified as supported or partially supported through Group Policy analytics become the basis for your Intune configuration profiles.