The Junior IT Guide: Making Sense of Entra ID, Intune, and Azure Portals

Introduction

When someone joins a company, they need a work account, a device, and access to the applications their role requires. Behind the scenes, IT staff manage identities, secure devices, control access, and look after cloud resources.

Microsoft splits these jobs across several services, each with its own portal. If you are new to IT, it is easy to mix them up. This guide explains what each one does, when to use it, and how they fit together.

What is Microsoft Entra ID?

Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Azure Active Directory, is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management service. It helps organisations manage:

• User accounts and groups
• Sign-ins and authentication, including Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), an extra verification step when signing in
• Permissions and administrative roles

Think of it as the company’s front door: it checks who you are before deciding what you can access.

Example: When a finance assistant joins, an administrator creates their account in Entra ID so they can sign in to company applications.

What Is Microsoft Intune?

Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service for managing and securing enrolled devices and the apps on them. “Enrolled” simply means registered with the organisation’s management system. IT teams use Intune to apply security settings, deploy applications, and check whether devices meet company requirements.

Example: When an employee receives a company laptop, the administrator can use Intune to require that its data is encrypted, which protects the information if the laptop is lost.

This lets organisations apply the same standards across many devices without configuring each one by hand.

What Is Microsoft Azure?

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Organisations use it to run resources such as virtual machines, databases, storage, and networks without hosting everything on their own premises. The Azure portal is the web interface administrators use to create and manage them.

Example: If a company needs a computer to run an application online, an administrator can create a virtual machine in Azure instead of buying another physical computer. A virtual machine is a computer created by software that runs on physical hardware.

Azure is separate from Microsoft 365. It is where organisations build and run infrastructure, not where people get Outlook or Teams.

What Is the Microsoft 365 Admin Center?

The Microsoft 365 admin center helps administrators manage Microsoft 365 users, licences, subscriptions, and services. A licence determines which Microsoft 365 services a user can use.

Example: When a new employee needs Outlook and Teams, the administrator assigns a suitable licence so they can use the services it includes.

It is the place for everyday Microsoft 365 administration, rather than for managing devices or Azure resources.

Which Portal Should You Use?

Each service has its own portal, so it helps to know where to go:

Portal	Main purpose	Example task
Entra admin center	Identity and access	Manage user accounts
Intune admin center	Devices and apps	Check device compliance
Azure portal	Cloud resources	Manage a virtual machine
Microsoft 365 admin center	Microsoft 365 administration	Assign a licence

Keep in mind that Microsoft 365 licences and Azure subscriptions and billing are managed separately.

How Do These Technologies Work Together?

Picture a new employee’s first day. Each service has a different job, but they work together:

1. IT creates the employee’s account in Entra ID.
2. A suitable licence is assigned in the Microsoft 365 admin center. A licence does not automatically grant every permission or access to every application.
3. Where required, the laptop is enrolled in Intune and receives its security settings.
4. When the employee signs in, Entra ID authenticates them, while Conditional Access evaluates configured policies using signals such as user, application, location, and device compliance, where supported.
5. If the policies are met and they have the right permissions, they can use applications such as Outlook, Teams, or SharePoint.
6. If they also need Azure resources, separate Azure permissions must be provided.

No single service does everything, and organisations configure them differently, so what you see at work may vary. The image below shows how these pieces connect.

Roles and Licensing

Two things affect what you can do in these portals: roles and licences.

• Roles decide what an administrator is allowed to do. Each role comes with a set of permissions. For example, a junior IT administrator who only manages user accounts can be given a role for that job, instead of an all-powerful role like Global Administrator.
• Licences decide which features are available. For example, Conditional Access, which controls who can sign in and under what conditions, needs a Microsoft Entra ID Premium P1 or P2 licence for the users it covers. If a feature is missing, the licence could be the reason, but permissions and settings can also be the cause.

Conclusion

Each service has its own responsibility:

• Entra ID manages identities and access.
• Intune manages enrolled devices.
• Conditional Access evaluates access policies.
• The Microsoft 365 admin center manages Microsoft 365 administration.
• Azure provides cloud computing resources.