Intune Asset Management: What It Can (And Can't) Do For Your IT Inventory

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 — but that's not the same as managing your full IT inventory.

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?

Microsoft Intune is not an IT asset manager. It 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, not asset lifecycle management. That distinction 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 homogenous 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

Because Intune was built for Device Management (not Asset Management) these gaps are structural, not bugs.

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 - none of which 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 Intune's scalability limits. The platform is optimized for Microsoft-managed endpoints. As the diversity of your asset types grows (different OS families, non-managed hardware, cloud assets, IoT devices) Intune's inventory becomes an increasingly incomplete slice of the full picture, not a unified source of truth.

This becomes a real problem for organizations scaling beyond a few hundred devices or operating in mixed Windows/macOS/Linux environments.

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.

Prerequisites

Before setting up the integration, you'll need:

• A Microsoft Entra ID administrator account with permission to register applications and grant API permissions.

• A registered app in Entra ID configured with the DeviceManagementManagedDevices.Read.All permission 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).

• 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

1. In InvGate Asset Management, go to Settings > Network > Discovery Sources and click Add.
2. Search for Microsoft Intune in the catalog and select it.
3. Complete the configuration form:
   1. Name: Enter a name for the integration.
   2. Type: Microsoft Intune (pre-selected).
   3. Environment: Select your Microsoft service environment. Use Global Service unless your organization operates under US Government compliance requirements (L4 or L5/DoD).
   4. Client ID: Enter the Application (client) ID from Entra ID.
   5. Client secret access key: Enter the client secret value from Entra ID.
   6. Tenant ID: Enter the Directory (tenant) ID from Entra ID.
4. Click Validate and continue.
5. After validation, configure the operational settings:
   1. Operating system: Select which OS types to sync. Click Load totals to preview how many devices are available per OS.
   2. Remove action: Define what happens in InvGate Asset Management when a device is deleted or unsynced in Intune.
   3. Schedule: Set the sync date, time, and repetition frequency.
6. Save the configuration and run the initial sync.

For a full walkthrough with screenshots, see how to set up the Intune integration in InvGate.

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, 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 instance. Windows and mobile platforms (Android, iOS) are confirmed.

Note on excluded devices: Not all Intune records sync. InvGate Asset Management excludes devices with a pending or incomplete enrollment, 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 will attempt to match each synced device to an existing user by email, username, or full name - and assign them as the device owner automatically.

What InvGate Asset Management adds beyond Intune

Intune feeds device data into InvGate. InvGate gives that data context - and adds everything Intune can't track.

• Unified inventory: Centralizes data from Intune alongside other discovery sources (Agent-based, network scanning, Jamf) into a single panel. One place to see everything, regardless of how the asset was discovered.
• Full asset lifecycle tracking: Extends your IT asset inventory beyond what Intune tracks — monitors, peripherals, network equipment, non-enrolled devices — from procurement through disposal. 
• Contracts and warranties: Stores vendor contracts, warranty expiration dates, and renewal deadlines for every asset. 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/MAM, not ITAM. 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 > Network > 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 book a call with our team to see exactly how this integration works.