Deploy Edge Favourites via Microsoft Intune

Welcome! Today, I will show you a complete guide on how to deploy Edge favourites via Microsoft Intune.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Intune license.
• Permissions to create Configuration Profiles within Microsoft Intune.
• Test device and user.

Creating the Edge favourites XML Layout

To deploy a list of corporate managed favourites to the Edge browser, we must first construct the XML file that instructs Microsoft Intune which favourites names, URL’s and folders to deploy, use this example layout below and edit to your liking, this example will set the following:

• Root folder set to “Let’s ConfigMgr Favourites”
• 4 Root Favourites deployed
• 1 Folder called “Microsoft Portals” with 5 favourites present

[
  {
    "toplevel_name": "Let's ConfigMgr Favourites"
  }, 
      {
        "url": "https://letsconfigmgr.com", 
        "name": "Let's ConfigMgr Website"
      },
	        {
        "url": "https://m365x092173.sharepoint.com/sites/SalesAndMarketing", 
        "name": "Sales & Marketing Team Site"
      },
	  	  	        {
        "url": "https://m365x092173.sharepoint.com/sites/Retail", 
        "name": "Retail Team Site"
      },
	  	  	  	  	        {
        "url": "https://web.yammer.com/main/letsconfigmgr.com", 
        "name": "Let's ConfigMgr Yammer Portal"
      },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Portals", 
    "children": [
      {
        "url": "https://portal.office.com", 
        "name": "Office 365"
      },
      {
        "url": "https://passwordreset.microsoftonline.com/", 
        "name": "Password Reset Portal"
		},	  
      {
        "url": "https://aka.ms/mfasetup", 
        "name": "MFA Setup"
		},	  
      {
        "url": "https://myapplications.microsoft.com", 
        "name": "MyApps"
		},
		      {
        "url": "https://portal.manage.microsoft.com/", 
        "name": "Endpoint Manager Portal"
      }
    ]
  }
]

Creating the Configuration Profile

Once the XML is in place and to your liking, the next stage is to create the Configuration Profile within Microsoft Intune, to do this log into the MEMAC portal, browse to Devices, Windows, Configuration Profiles and select Create profile:

On the create a profile page, select Windows 10 and later and a profile type of Administrative Templates:

Set an appropriate profile Name and Description:

Within the Configuration Settings pane, select Microsoft Edge and find Configure Favorites, select Enabled and input your XML contents into the available field, like so:

Optional but recommended: Enable the setting to show the favourites bar

At the end of the guide you should have the following two options set within the Configuration Profile:

That’s it! Now deploy the Configuration Profile to your test group of computers or users.

The Results

Once the policy has sync’d within my test device, within Microsoft Edge, you can see that the favourites are present within the subfolders and the favourites bar is visible:

Tip: Use the same XML layout to configure Google Chrome

Use the same XML as above to deploy the favourites to the Google Chrome browser, see my post on Managing Google Chrome to show you how.