How to enable Intune enhanced hardware inventory

Microsoft finally announced an improvement in Intune’s inventory capabilities. Intune Enhanced hardware inventory is rolling out to all Tenants!

Before moving forward with the details, it is important to know this new feature is referred to by different names.

• Intune Enhanced Hardware inventory
  • a comprehensive name for the announcement.
• Resource Explorer
  • The tab under each device to access the Enhanced hardware inventory
• Properties Catalog
  • Appears to be the official name of the feature, and is the official name in Microsoft’s documentation.
  • The name used for the Device configuration.

In this blog post, we will detail how to enable the enhanced hardware inventory for Intune.

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 21h2 or higher
  • minimum update level must be at September 2023 Cumulative update
  • KB5030211
• Windows 11 with minimum KB variation depending on the build.
  • 21h2 with KB5034121, January 2024
  • 22h2 with KB5029351, August 2023
  • 23h2 with KB5031455, RTM
• The device must be corporate-owned
• Intune Managed
• Microsoft Entra Joined or Entra Hybrid joined

Enable Intune device hardware inventory

By default, the new Intune device hardware inventory isn’t enabled. The classic Hardware of a device hasn’t changed. The latest section for Resource Explorer requires a device configuration profile in order to be populated.

• Browse to Device / Manage Devices / Configuration and create a new profile

• Provide the name.

• By default, no properties are clicked. Select the ones required.
  • We select all properties to provide greater flexibility later when querying for multiple device reports.

• Once selected, it clearly states the refresh cycle every 24 hours for all properties.

• Complete the policy scope and assignment like any other device configuration policy.

Access Resource Explorer

The per-device advanced inventory is available under each device / Resource Explorer. The minimum permission to see the inventory is Managed Devices Read.

Expect inventory to show up within 24 to 48 hours once the policy is deployed.

What can be done with Intune’s enhanced hardware inventory?

At the moment, not much. It essentially provides the inventory per device, visible via the console properties of a given device.

There isn’t a way to view/filter/group devices per specific inventoried field, yet…

What’s next for Intune’s enhanced device inventory?

The release of the feature is essentially the first step of many to come. Microsoft stated the following :

• Dynamic groups do not support yet the ability to use the enhanced device inventory
• Inventory might include applications and registry items eventually.
• Inventory data isn’t yet available to be exported via API

Is Resource Explorer any different than Hardware Inventory?

Short answer, Yes. Data is collected differently. At the moment, the recommendation is to use both to get the information about devices. In the future, Microsoft stated that it should become a unique way to see inventory.

Why am I seeing two Resource Explorer nodes under a device?

This is because of Configuration Manager’s Tenant Attach option. Both may be used, but the official recommendation is to use the newest one from Intune directly.

For more details about the Advanced Hardware inventory, see Microsoft learn.