From Intune to Kandji: Trackunit's MDM Migration Success Story

Trackunit is the leading SaaS operating platform connecting people, assets, and processes in construction. 2M+ machines and tools have been connected to the platform.

Challenges

For the Trackunit IT team, Microsoft Intune was the optimal tool for managing Windows and Android devices; it’s easy and natural for these OSes. However, they noticed several limitations when using it to manage Apple devices.

The IT team’s philosophy is to use the best tool available for each specific use case. For example, they decided to use Microsoft Exchange for email, but instead of using other Microsoft tools for collaboration, they opted to use Dropbox for file storage and Zoom for video conferencing.

Intune is a UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) tool that can do a bit of many things; it’s like a “jack of all trades”. IT admins can use it to do Windows, Android, Linux and Apple management, even if it isn’t the best tool for all those jobs.

For this reason, the IT team decided to migrate their Apple fleet management to Kandji, as they deemed it the best tool for their use case.

Results

The Trackunit IT team identified 14 reasons why they selected Kandji as the best tool for managing their Apple fleet:

1. Agility: Managing Apple devices with Intune is different from using it to manage Windows devices: it requires specific Apple knowledge that is not trivial. With Intune or another UEM (unified endpoint management) tool, the IT admin must learn specific Apple expertise in the tool: it takes a long time to learn to do even simple things.
   Instead, as an Apple-specific MDM solution, Kandji is very intuitive.

2. Updating and packaging applications: The IT team found it difficult to package Apple applications with Intune. It required multiple complex and manual steps:

   • finding the Apple application in “.MSI” (Microsoft Software Installer) file format.
   • uploading it to Intune using a MacBook system.
   • configuring its parameters.

   If a company has 10 to 20 Apple applications (such as Chrome, Zoom, Dropbox, Slack, and so on), which must each be updated and patched monthly, using Intune may require dedicating an IT admin full time to this task.

   With Kandji, the Apple application updates are fully automated and taken care of by Kandji, using its Auto Apps feature. Kandji packages the application and hosts the package in the cloud. The admin just has to add the specific Auto Apps Library Item to a Blueprint, and it will then be updated automatically.

3. Integration with the Apple ecosystem when deploying new applications: The IT team found that, in their experience, Intune does not integrate well with the Apple ecosystem. To deploy a new Apple application with Intune, they had to go through several steps: grabbing the Apple package file in Microsoft format, uploading it to the Intune server, and then managing it.

   With Kandji, the admin just goes to the Apple App Store and then adds the selected apps to Kandji Self Service.

4. Intuitive UI: The IT admin team found Intune to be complicated, which slowed them down. Everything took too many steps, even tasks that are simple for Windows and Android devices. Managing Apple devices wasn’t as intuitive as managing other platforms.

   IT admins loved the intuitiveness of the Kandji UI: it made their life much easier.

5. Easier learning curve: Learning to manage Apple devices with Intune required a steep learning curve. That curve was much gentler with Kandji.

6. Integration with Okta: Trackunit uses Okta as its identity provider. Microsoft Intune integrates seamlessly with Microsoft identity services such as Microsoft Entra ID. But the IT team found it much harder to Integrate Intune with Okta for Apple devices.

   Kandji’s integration with Okta is straightforward: with Passport, it’s easy to sync local credentials on Apple devices with those stored with Okta.

7. Updating operating systems: The Intune process for deploying an OS upgrade to the whole Apple fleet is complex and cumbersome to learn. This is a critical process that must be completed in a timely fashion; leaving the OS unpatched may lead to system vulnerabilities.

   Kandji automated Managed OS makes such updates much simpler, ensuring that an Apple fleet is updated and patched.

8. Improved user productivity: Intune did not work well for provisioning new Apple devices to employees via zero-touch. This was especially problematic for employees working from home.

   With Kandji, employees have been more productive, because they’re enrolled faster and get access to apps and cloud resources as soon as they need them. Kandji makes resources available for the users quickly and at scale. Employees can schedule their app and OS upgrades optimally around their working hours.

9. Improved security posture: With Intune, installing the latest software and OS patches would have required a huge effort, which depended heavily on manual interventions from the IT team. With limited resources, the IT team couldn’t achieve the security level they desired.

   With Kandji’s AutoApps and Managed OS, the patches and OSes are updated automatically.

10. Reduction of support tickets: The IT team noticed that, after migrating to Kandji, they were receiving fewer support tickets from Apple users than they had with Intune. The team also believes that users now spend less time figuring out what’s wrong with their devices before they open support tickets.

11. Save on Apple IT consulting fees: Since implementing Intune for Apple devices can be very complex, the IT team had to hire specialized consultants to help them set it up. That meant high consulting costs, and it was never easy to find Intune consultants who specialized in macOS management.

    With Kandji, there is no need for consultants: it can be managed directly even bya junior admin.

12. Technical support: Trackunit found it difficult to get support for Intune, since the company did not subscribe to Microsoft’s premium support contract. Instead, they were routed through layers of support personnel before they could find a person that could actually address their problem.

    With Kandji the team gets 24/5 support included in the price of the product: a knowledgeable and expert specialist is available to support them within minutes.

13. Easier migration and implementation curve: It has been easy for the IT team to migrate to Kandji. After a couple of weeks of preliminary testing, they started to roll it out to a small portion of their users. They proceeded slowly, adding small groups of employees while making sure that IT team members were available in case of unexpected problems. In the end, they were able to migrate all Apple-using employees from Intune to Kandji within a couple of months.

14. Keep a lean IT team: When the IT team decided to move away from Intune for their Apple fleet management, they evaluated other leading Apple MDM solutions in addition to Kandji. The IT team quickly figured out that, with other solutions, they would have needed to assign an MDM engineer full time to the task of managing another tool. That wasn’t necessary with Kandji.

Conclusion

By managing its Apple fleet with Kandji, but keeping Intune to manage its Windows, Android and Linux fleets with Intune, Trackunit has improved employee productivity, increased the operational efficiency of the IT team, and made its Apple fleet more secure. That, in turn, has meant the IT department could support a growing number of employees who were using Apple devices, with a lean IT team.