Snipe IT has quickly become one of the most popular inventory management platforms for IT teams. This talk will cover the basics of Snipe IT, as well as look into how Snipe IT is currently being leveraged by the College of Sciences at NC State University to manage assets.

There will be Q&A with Apple's Richmond-based account team. - All-new design. Durable unibody aluminum build in four stunning colors — silver, blush, citrus, and indigo - Portable & durable design. 2.7 pounds and 0.5 inches thin — built for learning on the go with Magic Keyboard and large Multi-Touch trackpad - Powered by A18 Pro chip with 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU for 50% faster everyday tasks - Up to 16 hours of battery life - AI, ML & Apple Intelligence. 16-core Neural Engine delivers 3x faster on-device AI workloads. Tools for writing, translation, transcription, and more are built-in - 13-inch Liquid Retina display. Comfortable, vibrant viewing optimized for classroom lighting conditions - Connectivity options include two USB-C ports, and a dedicated headphone jack - macOS Tahoe offers built-in privacy, security, and antivirus protection for peace of mind - Works seamlessly with Platform Single Sign-on and Authenticated Guest Mode -

A quick review of how LGPO and Active Directory policies (including ADMX templates) will be provided as a foundation to set the storyline for migration individual configuration items to Intune in the form of Intune Settings Catalogs and custom settings. A review of which options to use depending on the use-case will be covered with examples demonstrated.

Learn about our experience with ScreenConnect, to include... Deployment: Server-side installer generation Unique per-unit install hashes PSADT and scripted setup/organization Intune and scoped installation Usage: Groups Chat Toolbox Backstage Command relay Software management Other administrative tasks

Project management terms and practices are explored, looking for the fundamental aid their provide in helping projects deliver real benefits. Terms include but are not limited to: project charters, RACI charts, risk registers, value driven delivery.

From March 4th through the end of May, we will explore the process of evaluating the MacBook Neo and share insights into the why and ultimately the how of purchasing, implementation, and delivery of a laptop cart of 45 of these laptops was enabled within 90 days from start to finish. Hands-on hardware will be provided for demonstration purposes so audience members can see first-hand how laptops will function in the hands of students and IT technicians who manage and check them out.

Navigating the Entra ID and Intune Migration Higher education IT is in the middle of a generational shift. The move from Active Directory and MCM to Entra ID and Intune changes more than tooling. It reshapes governance, trust, and the working relationship between central and distributed IT teams. This session is presented from the distributed side. It comes from an IT administrator in the College of Engineering at a large public university who manages roughly 1,000 endpoints within a 30,000‑device centralized tenant.

Part 1: Earning Trust Without Global Admin The first section focuses on earning trust in an environment where authority is limited. We will explore how distributed teams can build credibility by: Volunteering to test new Intune policies Building scripts that benefit the entire institution, including: OEM license activation BIOS password auditing BitLocker key escrow Drive mapping at scale Respecting Global Administrator constraints, even if you disagree with them A featured case study walks through a Google Sheets to Microsoft Graph API pipeline built specifically because dynamic group creation was unavailable. It demonstrates how to solve real problems within real limitations rather than waiting for ideal permissions. ```text Constraints are not blockers. They are design inputs. ```

Part 2: Productive Disagreements Between Teams The second section covers the productive disagreements that routinely emerge between central and distributed IT, including: Zscaler deployment scope and licensing gaps Using MakeMeAdmin with guardrails when Endpoint Privilege Management is not accessible Microsoft 365 activation models for edge cases such as visiting students Remote access decisions, including RDP over Zscaler on personal devices versus deploying a Remote Desktop Gateway These examples are presented honestly from both perspectives.

Part 3: Challenging Migration Mindsets The final section challenges assumptions that slow Intune migrations down: Why 1:1 GPO migration is usually the wrong goal How importing ADMX templates into Intune creates tenant‑wide risk Why shielding users from features like Windows Hello for Business often does more harm than good We also highlight practical wins, including testing OpenIntuneBaseline policies, using OSDCloud with Autopilot registration, and sharing work publicly through GitHub.

Who should attend: Distributed IT administrators will leave with actionable patterns for operating within constraints. Central IT leaders will gain a clearer picture of what effective distributed teams look like and how to support them. Many scripts and tools referenced are available in a public GitHub repository.

The problem every IT manager in this room already knows Students in universities around the world push the desktop monitor aside, plug in their laptop, and work around the system IT built for them. For no other reason other than their preference for their own device. Meanwhile, that system keeps costing the same, whether students use it or not: licenses renewing automatically, hardware refreshing on schedule, VDI infrastructure growing more expensive every year.

This session starts with the practical, daily reality of managing a lab estate that was designed for a world that no longer exists. What we will cover Why the old model is no longer fit for purpose: We will walk through the specific pressure points IT managers are dealing with right now: VDI costs that have become unpredictable following major vendor restructuring, thick images that take days to deploy and fall out of date mid-semester, software licenses sized on guesswork rather than usage evidence, and hardware refreshed on a fixed calendar regardless of whether the machines are actually being used.

We will also cover the security exposure that legacy infrastructure creates: large attack surfaces, slow patching cycles, and recovery timelines that no academic calendar can absorb. What the modern lab actually needs: We will introduce a practical model for modern lab management, built around three shifts: from location-based to identity-based software access; from calendar-driven to evidence-based hardware and license decisions; and from reactive IT management to a continuous improvement cycle grounded in usage data.

This is a framework based on what institutions that have already made this transition are actually doing. The delivery stack, explained practically: We will break down the modern software delivery stack in plain terms: application virtualization for high-performance software, cloud delivery for broad access, and right-sized VDI for the applications that genuinely need it. Critically, we will show how smart delivery policies allow the platform to automatically choose the right method for each application and each device, based on whether the institution's priority is cost, performance, or both, without requiring IT to make that call manually every time.

Real numbers from real institutions: We will share specific outcomes from institutions that have modernized their lab environments: a university that extended device lifespan from three to five years by deploying leaner images; a college that absorbed a 35% hardware cost increase within its existing budget by matching device specifications to actual workload data; an institute that achieved 60% cost savings by replacing a full VDI deployment with a smarter hybrid model; and a team of five IT staff managing an estate of over 140,000 devices through platform-enabled remote management. What you will leave with A clear picture of where to start.

A practical framework - Measure, Optimize, Assure - for building a data-informed management practice. And the language to take the business case back to your institution and make it land.

Mention "containers" at a tech event and a line will immediately be drawn: those who support containerization and those who avoid it. This talk is aimed at the latter group, especially those who have little to no knowledge of containerization or the underlying concepts. Join us for a basic look at containers, how they function, and how you can immediately start using them to optimize your work. time permitting, we'll take a look at containers currently deployed in production and the value they bring to their environments.