Block Android device enrollment for specific device manufacturer

This week is all about restricting the enrollment of Android devices. More specifically, about a very recently introduced feature which is the ability to block Android device enrollment based on the manufacturer of the device. That enables the organization to prevent Android devices of specific manufacturers from enrolling in Microsoft Intune. That can be useful when the organization has a specific policy for allowed device manufacturers. In this post I’ll walk through the configuration steps, followed with the end-user experience.

Starting with this post, I’ll provide both the configuration steps via the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center portal and the configuration location in the Graph API (including the related JSON-snippet) as part of the configuration steps.

Configuration steps

Now let’s start by having a look at the configuration steps. These configurations can be achieved by either creating custom device type restrictions or by editting the existing default device type restriction. In the following example I’ll walk through these steps by adjusting the default device type restrictions. The following steps show how to add a device manufacturer to a list of blocked manufacturers.

  1. Open the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center portal and navigate to Devices > Enroll devices > Enrollment restrictions to open the Enroll devices – Enrollment restrictions blade
  2. On the Enroll devices – Enrollment restrictions blade, select the Default device type restriction and navigate to Properties to open the All Users – Properties blade
  3. On the All Users – Properties blade, navigate to the Platform settings section and click Edit to open the Platform settings page on the Edit restriction blade
  4. On the Platform settings page, provide the manufacturers to block in the Device manufacturer field (see example below) and click Review + save to continue to the Review + save page

Note: Use a comma-separated list when adding multiple manufacturers.

  1. On the Review + save page, click Save

For automation purposes, it might be better to know how to automate the device type restriction configuration. That can be achieved by using the deviceEnrollmentConfigurations object in the Graph API.

https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/deviceManagement/deviceEnrollmentConfigurations

However, keep in mind that the required properties are currently only available in the BETA version of the API. Below is an example snippet of a JSON that contains the Android Enterprise configuration with the blocked manufactures configuration, similar to the configuration via the UI.

"androidForWorkRestriction": {
    "platformBlocked": false,
    "personalDeviceEnrollmentBlocked": false,
    "osMinimumVersion": null,
    "osMaximumVersion": null,
    "blockedManufacturers": [
        "Samsung"
    ]
}

End-user experience

Now let’s end this post by having a look at the end-user experience. I’ll do that by showing the behavior on a personally-owned Android device that should enroll by using Android Enterprise work profiles to manage corporate data and apps. By default, enrollment of this type of personally-owned devices is enabled. That can be limited by using the enrollment restrictions, as shown in this post, or by simply blocking personally-owned devices.

In this scenario, I’m allowing the enrollment of personally-owned and company-owned Android devices, but I’m blocking any enrollment of Android devices from a specific device manufacturer.

When the end-user downloaded and installed the Company Portal app and started the enrollment process, at some point during the enrollment process the end-user will be blocked. While being blocked, the end-user will receive the message “Couldn’t add your device“. That message, of which an example is shown on the right, includes a clear explanation of why the device couldn’t be added. In my example the end-user is being told that the company needs the end-user to use an Android device manufacturer other then samsung.

Note: Keep in mind that the only reason that I’m using Samsung as an example in this post, is that I’ve got test Android devices of that device manufacturer. I don’t have any reasons that would actually require me to block the enrollment of Android devices from that device manufacturer.

More information

For more information about blocking Android device enrollment for specific device manufacturers, refer to the following docs:

8 thoughts on “Block Android device enrollment for specific device manufacturer”

  1. Do We have any method to allow only Specific Devices Models like Samsung Galaxy A51, Samsung Galaxy A52 and block all other Android device model to Enroll

    Reply
  2. We are testing this for certain Android manufacturers and minimum OS version and we not seeing the expected restriction message appear. It simply signs into the Company Portal app and gives no indication that the device was not enrolled or allowed to enroll. I cannot find anything in Microsoft documentation showing the expected user experience on Android. Has the experience changed since this was originally published?

    Reply
      • Hi Peter,

        On other devices, we install Company Portal and sign in and the Company Access Setup window comes up showing the three steps for enrollment. The user clicks on Begin to start enrollment.

        For the devices we have set a restriction on, the Company Access Setup window never comes up. The Company Portal simply signs in. On the Devices tab, I can see other devices that I have enrolled. The user does not receive a notification that the device manufacturer is not allowed.

        Reply

Leave a Reply to Michael Barszcz Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.