Standardising Proactive Experience (DEX) with Microsoft Intune

#Current Method

Many organisations react to device performance issues only after users submit support tickets. This break-fix approach creates high latency between symptom onset and resolution. Operators often lack consistent visibility into endpoint health metrics

such as boot time, application crash rates or network latency. Without standardised telemetry, troubleshooting relies on ad-hoc scripts and manual data collection. This variability increases mean time to resolution (MTTR) and obscures systemic trends.

Microsoft Intune

provides native Proactive Experience (DEX) capabilities, yet adoption is frequently fragmented. Teams may enable default policies without tuning thresholds to their specific hardware baseline. Consequently, alerts may be either too noisy or insufficiently sensitive. The current method often lacks explicit validation steps, leaving operators uncertain whether a configuration change has improved the user experience or merely shifted the failure mode.

#Improved Workflow

The improved workflow establishes a bounded DEX loop: baseline measurement, targeted policy application, observable validation and safe recovery. This approach aligns with operational excellence principles by prioritising observability and repeatable processes. Instead of broad, untargeted changes, operators define specific success criteria for each intervention.

Key actors include the Platform Engineer, who designs the policy; the Security Operator, who validates compliance boundaries; and the Service Desk Lead, who monitors ticket volume correlation. Trust boundaries are maintained by ensuring that DEX data collection respects privacy regulations and does not expose sensitive user content. The workflow trades off immediate comprehensive coverage for gradual, evidence-led expansion. This reduces the risk of widespread disruption from misconfigured thresholds.

#Implementation

Prerequisites include a dedicated test group in Microsoft Intune, non-production devices representing key hardware profiles, and Global Administrator or Intune Administrator permissions. Confirm the Intune service version supports the latest DEX features before proceeding.

1. Establish Baseline: Enable DEX data collection for the test group without applying remediation actions. Monitor metrics for seven days to establish normal variance for boot time and app responsiveness.
2. Define Thresholds: Set alert thresholds based on the 95th percentile of baseline data. This ensures alerts trigger only for significant deviations rather than normal fluctuations.
3. Apply Bounded Policy: Create a proactive remediation script for a single, low-risk scenario, such as clearing temporary files when disk space falls below a verified threshold. Assign this policy to the test group only.
4. Validate Execution: Verify script execution logs in Intune. Confirm that the action occurred only on devices meeting the specific criteria. Check for any unintended side effects, such as application errors post-cleanup.

#Guardrails

Security boundaries must remain intact. DEX scripts run with system privileges on Windows, so they must be strictly read-only or limited to non-destructive maintenance tasks. Never allow DEX policies to modify registry keys related to security controls or authentication providers without explicit security review.

Least privilege applies to operator access. Only designated Platform Engineers should have write access to DEX policies. Service Desk staff should have read-only access to dashboards for triage purposes. Residual risk includes potential performance impact from frequent script execution. Mitigate this by enforcing execution frequency limits, such as once per 24 hours.

#Validation

Observable success requires specific evidence. After policy application, verify that the target metric improves for at least 80% of the test group within 48 hours. For example, if the policy addresses disk space, confirm that free space increases and remains above the threshold for three consecutive days.

Check Intune management agent logs for script exit codes. A zero exit code indicates success, but must be correlated with actual metric improvement. If scripts succeed but metrics do not improve, the logic may be flawed or the root cause misidentified. Stop conditions include any increase in support tickets related to the targeted application or a rise in device crash reports.

#Common Mistakes

• Overly Aggressive Thresholds: Setting alerts too close to the mean causes alert fatigue. Operators begin ignoring notifications, defeating the purpose of proactive monitoring.
• Lack of Exclusion Lists: Failing to exclude critical business applications from automated cleanup or restart policies can disrupt active work. Always maintain an exclusion list for verified line-of-business apps.
• Ignoring Privacy Constraints: Collecting telemetry that includes user-identifiable information without proper anonymisation violates data protection principles. Ensure DEX configurations strip personal data before transmission.

#Recovery

If a DEX policy causes unexpected behaviour, immediate rollback is required. Disable the policy assignment in Intune for the affected group. This stops further script execution but does not reverse changes already made. For state-changing actions like file deletion, rely on user data backups

or version history where available.

Post-recovery verification involves confirming that the metric returns to baseline levels. If the policy caused application instability, verify that the application functions correctly after policy removal. Document the failure mode, including the specific script logic and device context, to prevent recurrence. Escalate to Microsoft Support if the issue stems from a platform bug rather than configuration error.

#Measurable Outcome

Success is defined by a 15% reduction in support tickets related to the targeted issue within 30 days. Additionally, user satisfaction scores for device performance should show a statistically significant improvement. Review these metrics monthly. If the reduction is not achieved, revisit the threshold settings and root cause analysis. The decision threshold for expanding the policy to production is a zero-severity incident record during the test phase.

#Checklist

• Baseline metrics established for seven days.
• Thresholds set at 95th percentile of baseline.
• Policy assigned to non-production test group only.
• Script execution logs verified for correct exit codes.
• Target metric improved for 80% of test devices.
• No increase in related support tickets observed.
• Rollback plan tested and documented.
• Privacy compliance confirmed for all collected data.

#Prerequisites and Role Permissions

Before enabling Endpoint Analytics DEX collection, confirm the tenant holds an eligible licence tier (Microsoft Intune Plan 1 combined with Windows Enterprise E3 or higher) and that the target devices are Azure AD joined or hybrid joined. The Platform Engineer requires the Intune Role-Based Access Control role “Endpoint Analytics Administrator” or an equivalent custom role scoped to the test device group; avoid assigning Global Administrator for routine policy work, as this breaches least privilege even during pilot phases. The Security Operator needs read access to Compliance Policies and Conditional Access reports to confirm that DEX proactive remediation scripts do not alter attributes referenced by existing compliance rules. Record each role assignment in the change ticket, including the Azure AD object ID of the assigned account, so that access reviews can trace who approved script deployment.

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Device Readiness Checks

Run Get-MpComputerStatus on a sample of pilot devices to confirm the endpoint protection service is active before layering additional monitoring, since DEX telemetry gaps often correlate with disabled or outdated agents. Confirm the Intune Management Extension service (IntuneManagementExtension) is running via Get-Service IntuneManagementExtension; a stopped or missing service prevents proactive remediation scripts from executing regardless of policy assignment, and this is a frequent silent failure during pilots.

#Configuration Detail for Proactive Remediations

When authoring the remediation script pair (detection and remediation), store both scripts under source control with version tags matching the Intune policy display name. The detection script should exit with code 1 only when the specific condition is met (for example free disk space below 5 GB on the system volume), and exit 0 otherwise. The remediation script must log actions to a local file such as C:ProgramDataDEXLogsremediation.log with timestamps, enabling correlation against Intune’s reported run status. Set the schedule to run using system context, daily, with a randomised delay to avoid simultaneous execution spikes across the test group at business start.

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Expected Evidence of Correct Behaviour

After deployment, the Intune console should show a device-level remediation status of “Success” alongside a detection status of “Issue detected” prior to remediation and “Issue not detected” on the subsequent cycle. Cross-reference this with the local log file content pulled via a Graph API script query or manual collection on a subset of devices. Absence of a log file despite a reported Success status indicates the script executed but the logging path lacked write permissions, which should be treated as a configuration defect rather than a true success.

#Monitoring and Alerting Configuration

Configure an Azure Monitor workbook or Log Analytics query against the Intune diagnostic export to track remediation success rate over rolling 24-hour windows. A useful baseline query filters DeviceManagementScripts events by PolicyId and aggregates by ResultCode. Set an alert rule that fires when success rate for the pilot policy falls below 90% across two consecutive collection cycles, distinct from the metric-improvement thresholds already defined for user experience outcomes. This distinguishes execution failures from cases where the script runs correctly but fails to resolve the underlying condition.

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Realistic Failure Symptoms

Common failure patterns include: remediation reported as Success but disk space metric unchanged, indicating the cleanup target path was incorrect or already empty; detection script timing out after the default 30-minute limit on devices with slow disks, producing an Unknown result rather than a clear pass or fail; and policy assignment showing as applied in Intune while the device-side event log (Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft-Windows-DeviceManagement-Enterprise-Diagnostics-Provider) shows no corresponding script invocation, which typically points to a stale device check-in or a conflicting Group Policy Object disabling the Management Extension service.

#Change-Control Record Requirements

Each policy change, including threshold adjustments and exclusion list updates, must be logged with the requesting role, approval timestamp, affected device group object ID, and rollback method reference. Maintain this record in the existing change-management system rather than solely within Intune’s built-in audit log, since the Intune audit trail retains entries for a limited window and does not capture the business justification for the change. Before promoting a policy from the test group to a wider pilot ring, the change record should include the validation evidence referenced in the Validation section, specifically the percentage of devices showing metric improvement and the exit code correlation result.

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Escalation Thresholds

Escalate to the Platform Engineering lead if remediation success rate drops below 90% for more than two consecutive days, or if any single remediation action correlates with more than three new Service Desk tickets within 24 hours. Escalate to the Security Operator immediately, outside standard review cadence, if a remediation script is found attempting to modify a path or registry key outside its documented scope, regardless of whether the action succeeded. Escalate to Microsoft Support only after confirming the Management Extension service, device check-in status, and script exit codes are all functioning as expected, since most reported anomalies trace back to local configuration rather than a platform-level fault.

#Safe Rollback Sequence

To roll back safely, first remove the device group assignment from the proactive remediation policy in Intune, then confirm via the console that the policy shows zero assigned devices before taking further action. Next, force a policy sync on a sample device using Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName PushLaunch | Start-ScheduledTask or the equivalent sync trigger, and confirm the removed policy no longer appears in the device’s applied policy list. Do not delete the policy definition itself during initial rollback; retain it in a disabled state so the exact configuration remains available for root cause review. Only delete the policy once the change record is closed and the incident review confirms no further diagnostic value remains.