If you're responsible for IT Asset Management (ITAM) in a mobile-heavy environment, Microsoft Intune is probably already part of your stack. It handles Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) well. Managing your full IT inventory takes more than that.
Intune gives you visibility into enrolled devices. ITAM gives you visibility into everything else: hardware lifecycle, software licenses, contracts, warranties, and assets that never touch an MDM platform. The gap between those two is where most IT teams get stuck.
This article explains what Intune does, where it falls short as a standalone ITAM solution, and how integrating it with InvGate Asset Management fills those gaps.
Is Intune an asset manager?
No. Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based MDM and MAM platform built to manage and secure enrolled devices (Windows PCs, Android smartphones, iOS tablets) and control access to company resources.
Its core job is device compliance and application security. That matters because ITAM covers a much broader scope: procurement records, ownership history, software license tracking, contract and warranty dates, and hardware that was never enrolled in any MDM.
Quick clarification:
- What Intune does: Enrolls and manages Microsoft-managed endpoints; enforces device compliance policies; controls app access and data protection.
- What Intune doesn't do: Track non-enrolled assets (monitors, network devices, peripherals); manage the full asset lifecycle; store contract or warranty data; handle software license compliance beyond app deployment.
- When Intune is enough: If your only goal is MDM for a homogeneous Windows/mobile fleet and you have no ITAM requirements beyond device visibility, Intune may suffice. For everything else, you need a dedicated ITAM platform.
3 limitations of having an inventory in Intune
Intune was built for Device Management, so these gaps are structural: they come from what the platform was designed to do. Each one shows up as soon as the inventory has to cover more than enrolled endpoints.
1. Limited asset tracking
Intune tracks enrolled devices. It does not track monitors, docking stations, network devices, printers, or any hardware that falls outside its MDM scope. It also doesn't maintain ownership history, asset assignments across departments, or lifecycle stages from procurement to disposal.
For organizations that need a complete picture of their hardware estate (including assets that were never enrolled in any MDM), Intune's device inventory leaves significant blind spots.
2. Limited third-party integration
Intune does not provide native, bidirectional integration with most third-party ITAM platforms. This means that even if you use Intune as a device data source, aggregating that data with the rest of your asset inventory requires custom connectors, manual exports, or a middleware layer unless your ITAM tool ships its own Intune connector. None of those workarounds scale well.
Effective ITAM depends on maintaining the relationships and dependencies between assets across systems. Without a clean integration path, those relationships get lost.
3. Scalability issues in heterogeneous environments
Large, heterogeneous device fleets expose the limits of Intune's coverage. Intune's supported platforms include Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS, Android and Linux (Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux). As the diversity of your asset types grows (non-managed hardware, network devices, cloud assets, IoT devices), its inventory covers a smaller and smaller slice of the full picture.
This becomes a real problem for organizations whose estate includes devices Intune can't enroll, such as switches, printers, IoT sensors or legacy rugged handhelds, or whose fleet is split across several management tools. Those devices still need an owner, a location and a lifecycle record, and Intune has nowhere to keep them.
How to use Intune for Asset Management and device inventory
The answer is integration. By connecting Intune to InvGate Asset Management, you turn Intune's device data into one discovery source within a broader, unified ITAM system.
Here's how the integration works in practice, in a condensed version of our step-by-step guide to the Intune integration.
Prerequisites
Before setting up the integration, you'll need:
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A Microsoft Entra ID administrator account with permission to register applications and grant API permissions.
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A registered app in Entra ID configured with the
DeviceManagementManagedDevices.Read.Allpermission via Microsoft Graph (Application permissions), with admin consent granted for the tenant. -
The following credentials from that app: Client ID (Application client ID), Tenant ID (Directory tenant ID), and Client Secret (generated under Certificates & secrets).
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An InvGate Asset Management instance with admin access.
Step-by-step setup
Add a New Discovery Source With InvGate Asset Management's Microsoft Intune Integration
- In InvGate Asset Management, go to Settings > Discovery > Discovery sources and click Add.
- Search for Microsoft Intune in the catalog and select it.
- Complete the configuration form:
- Name: Enter a name for the integration.
- Type: Microsoft Intune (pre-selected).
- Environment: Select your Microsoft service environment. Use Global Service unless your organization operates under US Government compliance requirements (L4 or L5/DoD).
- Client ID: Enter the Application (client) ID from Entra ID.
- Client secret access key: Enter the client secret value from Entra ID.
- Tenant ID: Enter the Directory (tenant) ID from Entra ID.
- Click Validate and continue.
- After validation, configure the operational settings:
- Operating system: Select which OS types to sync. Click Load totals to preview how many devices are available per OS.
- Device ownership: Choose whether to sync corporate devices, personal devices or both, based on the ownership type each device has in Intune.
- Remove action: Define what happens in InvGate Asset Management when a device is deleted or unsynced in Intune.
- Schedule: Set the sync date, time, and repetition frequency.
- Save the configuration and run the initial sync.
What you get after the sync
Once the sync runs, Intune devices appear as asset records in your InvGate Asset Management inventory. Each record includes the following data, depending on device type:
Hardware and system data (all devices)
- Manufacturer, Model, Serial number
- Total storage, Free storage
- Hostname, UDID
- Ethernet MAC address, Wi-Fi MAC address
- OS Name, OS Version
- Device compliance state
User data
- User name, User email, User ID
Intune-specific fields
- Management name, State, Enrollment type, Device ID, Device category, Device owner, Enrolled date, Last check-in
Additional fields for mobile devices
- IMEI, Phone number, Carrier
Supported operating systems for sync: the OS selector in InvGate Asset Management displays all OS types available in your Intune tenant, so the sync can bring in Windows computers as well as Android and iOS phones and tablets.
Note on excluded devices: Not all Intune records sync. InvGate Asset Management excludes devices with a pending or incomplete enrollment, devices Intune has never synced, devices managed by another platform (such as Jamf, Exchange, or Microsoft 365) that don't provide all required fields, and records with an empty serial number. When the same device appears twice in Intune, InvGate Asset Management keeps the record with the most recent enrollment date.
If automatic owner assignment is enabled, InvGate Asset Management matches each synced device to an existing user, starting with the email Intune reports for it, and assigns that user as the device owner automatically.
What InvGate Asset Management adds beyond Intune
Intune feeds device data into InvGate Asset Management, which gives that data context and adds everything Intune can't track. The result is one inventory where enrolled devices sit next to the hardware, contracts and records that Intune never sees.
- Unified inventory: Centralizes data from Intune alongside other discovery sources (the Agent, network discovery, other MDM integrations and CSV imports) into a single panel. One place to see everything, regardless of how the asset was discovered.
- Other MDM sources: Intune rarely manages every device in the company. InvGate Asset Management also syncs Apple devices from Jamf, ChromeOS and Android devices from Google Workspace, and field fleets from SOTI MobiControl: rugged handhelds, scanners, field tablets and legacy Windows CE or Windows Embedded handhelds that Intune can't enroll.
- Full asset lifecycle tracking: Extends your IT asset inventory to what Intune doesn't track (monitors, peripherals, network equipment and non-enrolled devices) from procurement through disposal.
- Physical audits for hardware that never enrolls: Monitors, docking stations and other peripherals never reach Intune, so they're registered in InvGate Asset Management directly and labeled with a QR code or a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. Physical audits then check them location by location and show which expected assets were found, which are missing and which turned up unexpectedly.
- Contracts and warranties: Stores vendor contracts, warranty expiration dates, and renewal deadlines for every asset. Outside the warranty view it offers for Microsoft Surface devices, Intune has no equivalent capability.
- Reporting beyond compliance: Generates lifecycle reports, audit trails, and asset assignment histories: the operational data that Intune's device-focused dashboards don't produce.
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Key takeaways
- Intune = MDM and MAM. It manages enrolled Microsoft-managed devices; it does not cover the full IT asset lifecycle.
- Main limitations: Intune only tracks enrolled devices, doesn't maintain asset ownership history or lifecycle stages, and has no native support for contracts, warranties, or software license compliance.
- The integration path: In InvGate Asset Management, go to Settings > Discovery > Discovery sources > Add, search for Microsoft Intune, and complete the form with your Entra ID credentials (Client ID, Tenant ID, Client Secret).
- What syncs: Hardware details (manufacturer, model, serial number, storage, hostname), OS name and version, compliance state, user data (name, email, ID), and Intune-specific fields (enrollment type, device ID, device category, last check-in). Mobile devices also sync IMEI, phone number, and carrier.
- The right combination: Intune handles MDM. InvGate Asset Management handles ITAM. Together, they give you a complete, centralized view of your entire asset estate.
Try InvGate Asset Management free for 30 days, or schedule a call with Sales to see exactly how this integration works.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions IT teams ask most often about Intune asset management. Each answer sums up what the article covers in more detail.
Is Intune an asset management tool?
No. Microsoft Intune is a Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) platform that enrolls, configures and secures devices, and it keeps an inventory of the devices it manages. Hardware that never enrolls, contracts, warranties, depreciation and ownership history stay outside that inventory, and covering them is the job of an IT Asset Management (ITAM) tool.
Can Intune track monitors and docking stations?
No. Intune inventories the enrolled device itself, and its properties catalog for Windows collects data such as CPU, memory, disks, network adapters and the system enclosure, with no category for monitors, docks or other peripherals. To track them, register them in an ITAM tool, label them with QR codes or RFID tags and verify them with physical audits, as InvGate Asset Management does.
Does Intune track warranties?
Only for Microsoft Surface devices. The Surface Management Portal in the Intune admin center shows warranty coverage for enrolled Surface devices, and Intune keeps no warranty or contract data for other manufacturers. InvGate Asset Management stores warranty and contract dates for every asset, fills in warranty data automatically for Dell and Lenovo devices through its Warranty APIs, and can send reminders before coverage expires.
How do you sync Intune with an ITAM tool?
Through a connector that reads Intune's device data from Microsoft Graph. In InvGate Asset Management, you register an app in Microsoft Entra ID with the DeviceManagementManagedDevices.Read.All permission, add Microsoft Intune as a discovery source under Settings > Discovery > Discovery sources with the app's Client ID, Tenant ID and client secret, and set a sync schedule. Each sync then creates or updates the Intune devices as assets in your inventory.
