Troubleshooting in MEM/Intune (p1).

Basic Troubleshooting.

When IT admins are first presented with a problem it normally comes in a user centric form.

For instance;

William Gates can't access the finance package from his new laptop.

Probably 90% of all tickets are made up of users complaining that they can’t access a resource or something linked to their logon account is not working as they expected.

Unfortunately most management consoles (and MEM is no exception) are organised from an application or service centric viewpoint which can make it hard to get an overview from a users perspective. You can end up ping-ponging around the console opening up one service dialogs after another trying and get a handle on the issue but getting nowhere.

There is however, an excellent resource that should be the first port call for all help desk operatives - the well named but rarely visited Troubleshooting + support tool.

This might sound obvious but there is a tendency to drive straight into the detail without first gaining an general overview. The advantage of the Troubleshooting + support tool is that it organises information from the user perspective, summarising a wealth of information in an easy to read manner. Since most issues are caused by something stupid this can reveal the problem straight away. 

The top level dialog shows basic account information including whether the user has an Intune licence, a list of group memberships, application allocations, registered devices, application protection status and enrolment failures.

The drop down provides data on a number of other key areas such as compliance and configuration policies and enrolment restrictions and a number of other key areas.  Selecting the information takes you directly to the service configuration dialog page which is a real time saver.

A good approach would be to find a user that works and then use the summary features of the Troubleshooting tool to find the difference between the two user states.  It’s not going to work all the time but it's a recommended first step.

Part 2: Accessing the Local Log files.