Often, I’ll need to push a piece of software in the Intune environment, but it isn’t available in the Microsoft App Store. It’s a slight inconvenience, but fortunately, there is a straightforward configuration when it comes to packaging applications into a format that Intune will receive and understand.
For iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, this kind of packaging is not required. However, for Mac OSX and Windows devices, you’ll need to effectively wrap the application you want to push to devices. My personal preference is to use *.msl files to wrap programs due to their set of structured commands. For Mac you’ll have to wrap the app using the *.pkg format.
App Packaging applications in Microsoft Intune
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Grab the installer file
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For Windows, Run it against Microsoft Win32 Content Prep Tool
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For Macs, use the Intune App Wrapping Tool for Mac
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Point to the exact installer you want to wrap
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Point the wrapping utility to where you’d like the output to be placed
From here, the installer will make incremental changes to the program that it’s modifying and then package it with outputs in a format ready for configuration with Intune. The result is a program prepared for installation to devices you have assigned via Intune.
Syncing with Intune
Once the program is configured, you can log into Intune and push the software to whichever group(s) (user or device groups) you or your client have deemed necessary.
The app can be installed automatically to devices upon device check-in or during initial configuration, or the user can manually install at their convenience via the Company Portal app.
Persisting with App Updates
The real downfall to wrapping applications of your own is the need to manage and wrap ongoing updates. Unfortunately, if you’ve packaged an app in the past and a new update has been released, you’ll have to re-wrap the newer version and delete the pre-existing app.
I’m confident Microsoft will apply a fix to this soon to relegate the issue. Common apps can be handled by third party programs like PatchMyPC as well. However, this isn’t a free lunch as macs are not yet included and less common applications may not be in the vendors library of packaged apps.
App Wrapping with Ease
In summation, packaging apps is a relatively easy work-around for configuring a program in Intune. There’s room for improvement in terms of scalability, but the current process is easy enough that it won’t cause any major interruption in your day-to-day productivity.
If you have questions about Microsoft Intune or would like help setting up your Intune environment, contact us. We have an Endpoint Support service as well, which can give you a certain number of hours each month to have questions answered and issues resolved.
