Recently, I had the pleasure of working Microsoft Ignite as part of the Windows 365 MVPs (Thanks again Christiaan). During that time, I met Robin Brandl and the rest of the ControlUp team who were working with Microsoft to give away the amazing Windows 365 book. I learned all about a great new product called ControlUp Enrich and ControlUp Edge DX, which extends Digital Employee Experience Management (DEEM or DEX) to Microsoft Intune and Windows 365.

Today, I am going to take you on a journey with their VIP 50-pack. The 50-pack gives anyone 50 free users for their DEX platform, which plays incredibly well with Microsoft Intune. We will cover how to deploy the agent via Intune, an introduction to the super cool data and analytics of Edge DX, creating alerts, and ControlUp Enrich coverging everything into a single pane-of-glass.

Deploying the ControlUp Agent Manager

It’s pretty simple, which you will find in the Configuration > Downloads menu that you can pretty easily download the Windows client with a pretty easy single line of MSI code. Intune does an excellent job of making that easy as you see in the demo. The code itself looks like this below:

msiexec /i agentmanagersetup.msi /qn DEVREGCODE=2327eefde25762d0275e731we23543a TENANT=dex-1e98ecd87934474d9d3432536b.sip.controlup.com ALLUSERS=1

Device Analytics in the ControlUp Edge DX Console

Inside of ControlUp Edge DX, we have a few different views as you can see below. It’s really neat some of the various views they are showcasing. I would love to be able to create your own dashboards/views, but they do a nice job laying out the data. It also makes getting started so much easier when you aren’t spending a ton of time building it out.

• Devices

• Application – Performance

• Devices – Averages

• Devices – Performance

• Network – Latency
• Network – Performance

• User Experience

We will highlight more in the video, how you can work with the data and analyze the user experience/performance of all of your users. There is a ton of information at your disposal along with some other abilities like:

• Execute scripts
• Remote assist
• Remote shell
• Reboot devices
• Remote control
• Notate devices and much more!

Creating Alerts for Automated Remediations in ControlUp Edge DX

To discuss alerts, we should understand the data you can use inside of ControlUp Edge DX. We have 12 table of data to work with:

• builtin_services2 (covers builtin services like the Group Policy Client or Software Protection mainly useful for if services are started and their PIDs)
• installed_apps (basically just installed apps)
• win_env_vars (Windows environment variables)
• power_events (power events like session lock/unlock)
• win_event_log (Windows event log e.g. System, App Logs, etc.)
• mswin_profiles (Windows profile locations)
• mswin_logons (Windows logon events, interestingly will show the name of the local PC connected to Windows 365)
• location_info (geolocation data and IP)
• netcfg_info (network interface info like MAC address, IP, interface name, etc)
• builtin_missing_patches (missing patches)

The terminology is a bit confusing, but alerts are a mechanism/vehicle for running automated remediations. Simply, you use the data inside of ControlUp Edge DX to run automated actions if the alert threshold is hit. The conditions are straight-forward. We’re just saying if Teams.exe hits 40%+ CPU, to clear the cache:

The code we’re implementing is here and is pretty easy PowerShell code. We do love our friend PowerShell:

#require -version 3.0
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Clears Team cache folder contents
.DESCRIPTION
    Closes Teams if it is open, clears the content of the cache folder and launches Teams again.
.NOTES
    Version:        1.0
    Author:         Ton de Vreede
    Creation Date:  2022-12-13
    Credits:        Rudy Mens (https://lazyadmin.nl/office-365/clear-teams-cache-2/)
#>
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
# Set output encoding to ensure non-ASCII characters are captured
[Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8
# Stop Teams. If this errors, Teams was not running in the first place.
# If for some reason Teams IS still running not much we can do about that, try to clear as much as possible anyway
Stop-Process -Name 'Teams' -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
# Give it 5 seconds to close
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
try {
  # Try to remove all items in the Teams cache folder
  Get-ChildItem -Path "$($env:APPDATA)\Microsoft\teams" | Remove-Item -Recurse -Confirm:$false
  Write-Output -InputObject "### SIP EVENT BEGINS ###`nTeams cache has been cleared and Teams will be relaunched.`n### SIP EVENT ENDS ###"
}
catch {
   Write-Output -InputObject "### SIP EVENT BEGINS ###`nFailed to delete all items in Teams cache folder. Teams will be relaunched. The reported exception is:`n$_`n### SIP EVENT ENDS ###"
}
# Relaunch teams
Start-Process -FilePath $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\Teams\current\Teams.exe
Exit 0

There are tons of other options in the script library like:

• Disk Cleanup
• Enable RDP
• AVD Shortpath Test (very cool script that will validate if RDP Shortpath works or not)
• Check Screensaver Settings

You can find more at the ControlUp Script Library here.

ControlUp Enrich Elevates Microsoft Intune

You can download ControlUp Enrich for Chrome/Edge here. ControlUp Enrich is the thing that made me want to checkout ControlUp’s DEX platform for Intune/Windows 365. ControlUp Enrich delivers amazing synergy into Microsoft Intune by matching the Device ID in your Intune URL to the Device ID inside of ControlUp Edge DX to unify everything.

Extending ControlUp Edge DX with Enrich creates a special user experience. It feels like you’re using a single platform. We can easily execute scripts, access the user’s shell, and remote control or shadow them with just a few clicks. Only the video below can truly do it justice.

Closing Thoughts

ControlUp is a great partner for Microsoft to enhance monitoring and proactive remediation of issues. Windows 365 and Microsoft Intune need a little help and that’s okay. ControlUp Enrich literally “enriches” the administrator experience. Admins can use a little bit of help to make life easier. ControlUp delivers without a doubt. I think ControlUp Edge DX could benefit from some tweaks in their UI like:

• changing the color of the trashcan
• potentially converging settings and configuration (which takes a little getting used to)
• adding in custom data/sensors so you can target automations easier

Overall, I love the job ControlUp did. I will definitely be using Enrich moving forward as an amazing compliment to Intune and Windows 365. I’m a fan! Let’s build more products like this. Disjointed tech is a failure. Synergy is king! We’re in the year of data, and we can use as much help as we can get.