Welcome to the Windows 365 Frontline Interactive Demo

Select start to continue.

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the demand for flexible and secure remote work solutions has never been greater. Microsoft’s Windows 365 portfolio offers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based desktop services designed to meet the diverse needs of modern businesses. Among these offerings, Windows 365 Frontline stands out as a tailored solution specifically designed for organizations of any size that employ shift workers and part-time employees who need access to a Windows 365 Cloud PC only during their shift.

Windows 365 Frontline extends the power and versatility of the Windows 365 ecosystem to employees who are often at the forefront of business operations. These workers, who may include healthcare professionals, retail associates, and factory workers, require consistent and reliable access to their digital workspaces. With Windows 365 Frontline, employees will receive the same personalized, complete Windows experience offered in other Windows 365 plans. This ensures that all users, regardless of their role or location, can enjoy a seamless, high-performance computing environment that enhances productivity and collaboration.

Windows 365 Frontline offers a robust solution that balances productivity, security, and manageability. The platform’s upcoming support for GPU-intensive applications further enhances its utility, enabling frontline workers to run demanding software with ease. This can significantly boost productivity by providing employees with the computational power they need for complex tasks. Additionally, Windows 365 Frontline integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Intune, simplifying the management of virtual desktops and ensuring robust security protocols are maintained.

The security features inherent in Windows 365 Frontline are crucial for protecting sensitive data and maintaining compliance with industry regulations. IT administrators can leverage advanced security measures, such as multifactor authentication and conditional access policies, to safeguard corporate resources. Furthermore, the centralized management capabilities provided by Microsoft Intune allow for streamlined deployment, monitoring, and maintenance of cloud PCs, reducing administrative overhead and ensuring a smooth operational flow.

This interactive guide will walk you through the IT experience when using Microsoft Intune to provision Cloud PCs for frontline workers and then monitor and manage those Cloud PCs. You will also preview the employee experience when using a Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PC. To use the interactive guide, follow along with the instructional content in the right panel – clicking or typing as instructed. Hints will be provided if you make a mistake, and for longer text input there will be a copy/paste button that places the correct text on your clipboard to paste into the simulation.

When you are ready, click Continue to begin.

Select Exercise 1 to continue.

Contoso has previously provisioned Frontline Cloud PCs for its call center and customer service employees. In this exercise, Contoso will be taking advantage of the newly available GPU support for Frontline Cloud PCs to provision them for a group of part-time employees whose work requires the additional computational power of GPU support.

Cloud PCs are created and assigned to users based on provisioning policies defined in Microsoft Intune admin center. Provisioning policies allow you to define key parameters including which network will host the Cloud PC, the image to be installed on the Cloud PCs, language settings, and whether it will be joined to the enterprise AD and synced to Microsoft Entra (Hybrid Microsoft Entra join) or joined directly to Microsoft Entra (Microsoft Entra join).

Once a provisioning policy is assigned to a user or group – the Windows 365 service will check for appropriate licensing for those users and then provision and configure Cloud PCs accordingly.

Beginning in the Microsoft Intune admin center, signed in as admin@contoso.com, a global administrator for Contoso, select Devices in the left navigation.

On the Devices | Overview page, select Windows 365 under Device onboarding in the left navigation.

On the Devices | Windows 365 page, select the Provisioning policies page.

On the Provisioning policies tab, select Create policy.

Click in the name field and then type or copy/paste Frontline Worker GPU Enabled Cloud PC and press Enter.

In the description field, type or copy/paste Provisioning policy for Frontline workers requiring a GPU and press Enter.

As the license type, select Frontline.

Leave the Frontline type set to Dedicated, as you are creating this provisioning policy for part-time employees who will require GPU enabled Cloud PCs on a set schedule.

We will be using the default join type (Microsoft Entra Join). As the network, select Microsoft hosted network.

Click anywhere on the screen to scroll down.

Then click to expand the Geography menu and then click to scroll down and select US West 3.

Leave Region set to Automatic, and then click Next.

When creating a provisioning policy you have the option of using a custom device image or selecting from the built-in gallery of images. The customer is free to pick whatever solution fits best for their needs.

Select Change under Windows 11 Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Apps H2 to review the images available in the gallery.

Contoso will be using the default – the latest Windows 11 + Microsoft 365 Apps image from the gallery, so select the X to close the select an image panel and then click Next at the bottom of the Create a provisioning policy page.

Windows 365 allows you to specify the default language and region settings for Cloud PCs created with this policy. Contoso will be leaving this set to the default value of English (United States) for this particular provisioning policy.

You can also define a naming template for all cloud PCs provisioned with this policy. This naming template updates the NETBIOS name and doesn't affect the display name of the Cloud PC. When creating the template, follow these rules:

• Names must be between 5 and 15 characters.
• Names can contain letters, numbers, and hyphens.
• Names can't include blank spaces or underscores.
• Optional. Use the %USERNAME:X% macro to add the first X letters of the username.
• Required. Use the %RAND:Y% macro to add a random string of characters, where Y equals the number of characters to add. Y must be 5 or more. Names must contain a randomized string.

Select the checkbox next to Apply device name template and then click in the Enter a name template field to type, and type or copy/paste FLGPU%RAND:10% and press Enter.

Verify the name template is correct and then select Next.

You will not be configuring any scope tags for this policy – select Next.

Select Add groups on the assignments tab.

On the Select groups to include panel, select the FLW GPU group and then click the Select button.

After selecting a group, you will need to select the size of Cloud PC to provision for those users. Click Select one under Cloud PC size.

On the Select Cloud PC size panel, click to expand the available sizes menu, select Cloud PC Frontline GPU Max and click Select.

• Graphics-Intensive Applications: GPU-enabled Cloud PCs are designed to handle graphics-intensive applications such as CAD (Computer-Aided Design), 3D modeling, video editing, and rendering software. This ensures smooth performance and quick rendering times, which are critical for professionals in creative and engineering fields.
• Improved Compute Power: The inclusion of GPUs significantly boosts the computational capabilities of Cloud PCs, making them suitable for data-intensive tasks, machine learning, and AI workloads. This can accelerate complex computations and improve efficiency for data scientists and researchers.

Next, you will specify the number of licenses to be associated with this particular group:

• Under Assignment, select the Name field to type and then type or copy/paste flw_gpu_uswest and press Enter.
• Now select the Licenses for assignment field to type and type or copy/paste 2 and press Enter.

Verify the assignment and then click Select.

Click the Next button at the bottom of the Assignments tab to continue.

Verify the configuration on the Review + Create tab, then click the Create button.

Once the new policy is successfully added, select the All Cloud PCs tab.

Cloud PCs are now being provisioned for the members of the FLW GPU group (for the purpose of this demo – Adele Vance is a member of the FLW GPU group). In a short time, those Cloud PCs will be fully provisioned and ready to use.

Click anywhere on the screen to continue to a point where provisioning has completed.

The Cloud PCs for the FLW GPU group have been provisioned.

Select Adele’s Frontline Cloud PC to navigate to the detailed view for that Cloud PC.

The Cloud PC blade in Intune admin center provides detailed context for the Cloud PC, as well as quick access to administrative actions:

• Sync: This option allows you to synchronize the Cloud PC with Intune to ensure that the latest configurations and policies are applied to the device.
• Restart: This option enables you to remotely restart the Cloud PC, which can be useful for applying updates or resolving issues that require a reboot.

You have successfully completed this exercise. Click anywhere on the screen to continue with the interactive demo.

Select exercise 2 to continue.

Cloud PC performance and utilization reports in the Microsoft Intune admin center provide visibility into key performance metrics affecting the employee experience, as well as information on Cloud PC utilization which allows you to ensure that you have the right number of licenses for your organization – and that those licenses are being used efficiently.

In this exercise, you will be focusing specifically on Frontline Cloud PC utilization at Contoso. The Connected Frontline Cloud PCs report is specifically tailored for organizations using Windows 365 Frontline. It provides a detailed overview of the connectivity status and usage patterns of Frontline Cloud PCs to help you ensure that you’ve purchased and assigned the optimal number of licenses for peak usage.

In the Microsoft Intune admin center, select Devices in the left navigation.

Note: you can also navigate to Cloud PC reports by Reports in the left navigation of the Microsoft Intune admin center.

On the Devices | Overview page, you have ‘at a glance’ visibility into key Cloud PC performance metrics, device compliance, Cloud PC recommendations, and connected Frontline Cloud PCs.

Select Cloud PC performance to navigate to the overview page for Cloud PC reports.

On the Cloud PC performance tab, you can access reports detailing connection quality issues, Cloud PC utilization, and Connected Frontline Cloud PCs.

Under Connected Frontline Cloud PCs (preview), select Connected Frontline Cloud PCs (preview) to view the detailed report.

This concurrent connection history report enables you to efficiently manage Frontline licenses for your organization by providing an at-a-glance view of concurrent usage overlaid with the current license limit. You can see from the report where utilization is close to or currently exceeding the available licenses for a given size/assignment.

Select Cloud PC Frontline GPU Max to view more detail for that Cloud PC size.

You can see from this report that utilization of the GPU-enabled Frontline Cloud PCs is still well below the number of available licenses. Hover over the data point on the graph for 07/15 to see the exact data for that day. This is to be expected as you are just beginning the rollout – you will be able to return to this report as additional employees are onboarded to ensure optimal license utilization.

You have now completed this exercise. Click anywhere on the screen to proceed to review the Frontline Cloud PC employee experience on the web.

Select exercise 3 to continue.

Windows 365 Frontline boosts productivity by providing a modern Windows experience from the cloud to shared devices so that frontline workers can access powerful Cloud PCs during their shift.

In this exercise, you will preview the experience of a frontline employee accessing their GPU-enabled Frontline Cloud PC on the web (via windows365.microsoft.com). Windows 365 provides a simple experience for managing or launching Cloud PCs from any HTML5 compatible browser - including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox.

In this exercise, you will be using Microsoft Edge.

Beginning on https://windows365.microsoft.com, signed in as Adele Vance (adelev@contoso.com), click through the introductory content as Adele’s Cloud PC is being provisioned.

Click Next on the 'Your Cloud PC is ready for you' bubble.

Review the information on how to connect to your Cloud PC from your browser and then click the Next button.

Note how to access the Settings menu to manage the Cloud PC, then click Got it.

With windows365.microsoft.com, it is easy for Adele to manage or launch their GPU-enabled Frontline Cloud PC. From this page, Adele can also access the new Windows App. In this demo, we will be previewing the new Windows App experience.

Select Open Windows App to launch that experience.

Windows App is designed with a customizable home screen to cater to your unique workflow needs. You can access Windows across multiple different services and remote PCs from a single place and pin your favorites you access most. The app delivers high-performing and reliable experiences for Microsoft Teams and your other Microsoft 365 apps as well as other features to enhance your remote experience.

The home screen of the Windows App displays any devices which Adele has chosen to pin to their home screen. As this is Adele’s first time using the app, they haven’t pinned any devices yet.

Select Go to devices to view Adele’s devices.

Adele currently has 1 GPU-enabled Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PC, as you can see from the indicators on the device tile. Select the ‘…’ (three dots) management menu for Adele’s GPU Enabled Cloud PC to review the available capabilities.

Adele wants to pin this Cloud PC to the Windows App home screen.

Click Pin to… and then select Pin to home.

Once the Cloud PC has been pinned, it will show up on the home screen of the Windows App in the future.

Select Go to home and then click the X to close the ‘Pinned’ notification and continue.

Select Connect to connect to Adele’s GPU Enabled Frontline Cloud PC.

Review the in-session settings, then select More advanced settings and click to scroll down and review the additional options.

Adele often works with advanced 3D modeling and image editing software and wants to enable high DPI support. Set the Enable high DPI toggle to on, then select Don’t show this again and click Connect.

Adele will also see an informational reminder to disconnect from their Cloud PC when finished. Select OK to continue.

Sign in using Adele’s credentials: type or copy/paste password as Adele’s password and press Enter or click Sign in.

Adele’s GPU enabled Cloud PC is now open in full screen mode. Click to collapse the toolbar for a fully immersive view.

GPU enabled Windows 365 Cloud PCs offer significant advantages over standard Enterprise Cloud PCs by providing enhanced graphical and computational performance for workloads requiring:

• Graphics-Intensive Applications: GPU-enabled Cloud PCs are designed to handle graphics-intensive applications such as CAD (Computer-Aided Design), 3D modeling, video editing, and rendering software. This ensures smooth performance and quick rendering times, which are critical for professionals in creative and engineering fields.
• Improved Compute Power: The inclusion of GPUs significantly boosts the computational capabilities of Cloud PCs, making them suitable for data-intensive tasks, machine learning, and AI workloads. This can accelerate complex computations and improve efficiency for data scientists and researchers.

These capabilities are beneficial to individuals in roles such as:

• Creative Professionals: Graphic designers, video editors, and animators who rely on software such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk Maya, and Blender benefit from the enhanced graphical capabilities and performance.
• Engineers and Architects: Professionals using CAD software like AutoCAD, SolidWorks, and Revit can perform complex modeling and simulations more efficiently.
• Data Scientists and Researchers: Those working with large datasets, machine learning models, and AI can utilize the GPU power for faster data processing and model training.
• Financial Analysts: Users involved in financial modeling and quantitative analysis can leverage GPU resources to run complex simulations and calculations.

Adele uses Blender for their work – let’s review how the GPU enabled Cloud PC handles a complex 3D particle simulation benchmark for Blender. Double-click on the Blender shortcut on the Windows desktop to launch Blender.

Once Blender has loaded – click anywhere on the screen to view the particle simulation in action.

After the simulation has completed – close the Blender window.

You have successfully completed the interactive guide. Click anywhere on the screen to continue.

Congratulations on completing the Windows 365 Frontline interactive demo.

You can select any exercise to review or click the home button to return to the beginning of the demo.