Plan licensing and deployment strategies for the Microsoft Intune Suite

  • 10 minutes

Successfully deploying Microsoft Intune Suite add-ons requires planning your licensing approach and rollout strategy. Understanding licensing options, trial capabilities, and deployment considerations helps you implement Intune Suite components effectively.

Understanding licensing options

Microsoft Intune Suite add-ons are available through multiple licensing paths. The option you choose depends on which capabilities you need and your organization's size.

Individual add-on licensing

You can license specific add-ons separately based on your organization's needs. This approach works well when you need one or two specific capabilities rather than the complete suite.

Individual add-on options include:

  • Endpoint Privilege Management
  • Enterprise App Management
  • Advanced Analytics
  • Remote Help
  • Microsoft Tunnel for Mobile Application Management
  • Cloud PKI
  • Firmware Over-the-Air update
  • Specialty devices management

Each add-on is licensed per user. The number of licenses you need depends on how each add-on calculates license requirements.

Intune Suite licensing

The complete Intune Suite package includes all add-on capabilities. Organizations planning to use multiple add-ons often find the complete suite more cost-effective than licensing components individually.

When you license the Intune Suite, you gain access to all current add-ons plus any new capabilities Microsoft adds to the suite over time. This approach future-proofs your investment as the suite expands.

Intune Plan 2 considerations

Some add-ons are available as part of Intune Plan 2 subscription in addition to standalone licensing. Organizations evaluating licensing should compare:

  • Cost of individual add-ons versus Intune Plan 2
  • Current Intune licensing level
  • Which capabilities are included in each option

Consult current Microsoft licensing documentation for specific add-on availability across different plans, as offerings evolve over time.

Using free trials

Microsoft provides 90-day free trials for Intune add-ons, allowing you to evaluate capabilities before purchasing licenses. Trials support up to 250 users per tenant.

Starting a trial

Global administrators and billing administrators can start free trials through the Microsoft 365 admin center. Other administrators can view trial status but can't initiate trials.

To access trial options in the Microsoft Intune admin center:

  1. Navigate to Tenant administration > Intune add-ons
  2. Select the All add-ons tab
  3. Review available add-ons showing "Available for trial or purchase"
  4. Select View details for the add-on you want to evaluate
  5. Follow the link to the Microsoft 365 admin center
  6. Start the free trial and confirm your order

After starting a trial, the add-on status changes to "Active" in the Intune admin center. You can immediately begin using the capability with your trial users.

Trial limitations and considerations

Note

Each tenant can start only one trial per add-on. Once a trial for a specific add-on has been used, you can't start another trial for that same add-on in the same tenant. Plan your trial period carefully to evaluate the capability thoroughly.

Warning

Trials last 90 days with a 30-day grace period after expiration. During the grace period, add-on functionality remains available, giving you time to purchase licenses if you decide to continue using the capability. After the grace period ends (120 days total), users lose access to the add-on until you purchase licenses.

Use the trial period to:

  • Validate the add-on meets your organizational requirements
  • Test integration with existing Intune policies and configurations
  • Train IT staff on managing the new capability
  • Gather feedback from pilot users
  • Assess the business value and return on investment

License assignment strategies

After purchasing add-on licenses, you must assign them to user accounts. License assignment determines which users can use specific add-on capabilities.

Assign licenses using the Microsoft Intune admin center or Microsoft 365 admin center. You can assign licenses to:

  • Individual user accounts
  • Groups of users through group-based licensing

Group-based licensing simplifies management for larger deployments. Create Entra groups containing users who need specific add-ons, then assign licenses to those groups. As you add or remove users from groups, license assignments automatically update.

License assignment considerations by add-on

Different add-ons have different license requirements:

Endpoint Privilege Management: License users who need to elevate applications. Standard users running elevated applications require licenses. Administrators managing EPM policies don't need licenses unless they also use EPM as standard users.

Important

Ensure you assign licenses to users before they attempt to use add-on capabilities. Users without proper licenses can't access Intune Suite features even if the features are configured in your tenant.

Remote Help: License both helpers (support staff) and sharers (users receiving help). Without proper licensing, neither party can initiate or join remote assistance sessions.

Advanced Analytics: Licensing requirements depend on which devices you want to include in analytics processing. Consult specific guidance for Advanced Analytics licensing.

Enterprise App Management: License users who will receive application deployments from the Enterprise App Catalog.

Other add-ons have specific licensing models described in their respective documentation.

Deployment planning considerations

Successful Intune Suite deployments require planning beyond licensing. Consider these factors when planning your rollout.

Phased deployment approach

Start with pilot groups rather than deploying suite capabilities organization-wide immediately. Identify pilot users who:

  • Represent typical use cases for the capability
  • Can provide meaningful feedback
  • Understand they're participating in a pilot with potential issues

Deploy to pilot groups, gather feedback, refine your configuration, then expand to additional groups progressively. This approach reduces risk and improves implementation quality.

Tip

For Endpoint Privilege Management deployments, start with a small pilot group of 10-20 users from a single department. Monitor elevation patterns for 2-4 weeks to identify common applications that need elevation rules before expanding to larger groups. This approach helps you build a comprehensive rule set based on real usage patterns.

Technical prerequisites

Verify technical requirements before deployment:

Network requirements: Ensure firewalls and proxies allow traffic to required Microsoft service endpoints. Each add-on has specific endpoint requirements documented in Microsoft's configuration guidance.

Client requirements: Confirm devices meet operating system version requirements. Some add-ons support specific platforms or OS versions.

Intune enrollment: Most add-ons require devices to be enrolled in Intune. Verify devices you want to target are enrolled and receiving Intune policies.

Microsoft Entra ID integration: Confirm your environment has proper Microsoft Entra ID integration for authentication and identity management.

Configuration planning

Plan your configuration approach for each add-on:

Endpoint Privilege Management:

  • Identify applications and processes users need to elevate
  • Determine appropriate elevation types for each use case
  • Design elevation rule structure and organization
  • Plan report review processes and responsible teams

Remote Help:

  • Define helper roles and their permission levels
  • Determine which users can provide remote assistance
  • Configure compliance warning thresholds
  • Establish session monitoring and audit review processes

Advanced Analytics:

  • Identify which device groups to include in analytics processing
  • Configure alerting thresholds for anomaly detection
  • Define response processes when analytics identifies potential issues

Change management and communication

Inform users about new capabilities and changes to their workflows. For capabilities like Endpoint Privilege Management that change how users perform tasks, provide:

  • Clear communication about what's changing and why
  • Training materials or documentation
  • Support resources for questions and issues
  • Feedback mechanisms to improve the implementation

Help desk and support teams need training on new capabilities before deployment. Support staff should understand how to use Remote Help, respond to EPM elevation requests, and troubleshoot add-on related issues.

Monitoring and optimization

After deployment, monitor add-on usage and effectiveness:

  • Review EPM elevation reports to identify additional applications needing rules
  • Monitor Remote Help session reports to ensure appropriate usage
  • Analyze Advanced Analytics insights and track issue resolution
  • Collect user feedback on capability effectiveness
  • Adjust configurations based on operational experience

Schedule regular reviews of add-on usage and value. Ensure licenses are assigned to active users who need them, and reclaim licenses from users who don't use the capabilities.

Integration with existing processes

Intune Suite add-ons integrate with your existing Intune management workflows. However, consider how new capabilities affect current processes:

Adding Endpoint Privilege Management might reduce your software installation request volume, allowing support teams to focus on more complex issues.

Remote Help consolidates remote assistance within Intune, potentially eliminating separate remote support tools and associated processes.

Advanced Analytics might change how you identify and prioritize device support issues, shifting from reactive ticket-based support to proactive intervention.

Plan for these process changes as part of your deployment strategy. Update documentation, training, and workflows to reflect new capabilities.

Accessing add-on management

Manage Intune Suite add-ons from the Microsoft Intune admin center under Tenant administration > Intune add-ons. This central location shows:

  • Current trial and purchased add-ons in your tenant
  • Add-on subscription status (Active, Available for trial, Available for purchase)
  • Links to documentation and configuration guidance for each add-on

The Your add-ons tab shows add-ons you currently have access to through trials or purchases. The All add-ons tab displays all available add-ons regardless of current licensing status. The Capabilities tab provides descriptions and "Learn more" links for each add-on.

Note

Sovereign cloud support for Intune add-ons varies by add-on. Before planning deployments in Government Community Cloud (GCC) or other sovereign cloud environments, verify current availability in the Intune add-ons documentation.