Send notifications to mobile devices with Intune

Intune has a new feature – once again.
You can now send push notification to the users’ screen.
There are several scenarios where you would like to send some push notifications to your users.

• inform users about strangers on the company campus
• inform users to take a break from the heat and spend the rest of the day at the pool
• let them know that the ice cream cart is at the campus and you sponsor a free one

Requirements

• The device needs the company portal installed.
• The Company portal needs the required permission to allow notifications
• On an Android, you’ll also need Google Play Services

Limitations

• You can only send 25 messages per hour per tenant.
• Messages appear as a standard push notification. If the company portal app is open on iOS, the push notification is shown in the app instead
• the title can have up to 50 characters
• the body can have up to 500 characters
• Each notification can directly target up to 25 groups. Nested groups don’t count against this total.

Flow of a message

• Intune tries to send the message for one hour.
• The message is sent to the company portal. The company portal creates then the push notification

How to send a message

• Login into Intune and go to Devices → Send custom notifications
• On the Basic tab specify title and body for the message

• on the Assignment Tab add some groups you want to notify. If you are mixing user and device groups, only users with an Android or iOS device are affected

• on the Review + Create tab just doublecheck your settings and hit Create to send the message