Duplicate Settings Catalog Policy In Intune

In this post, I will show you how to duplicate settings catalog policy in Intune. Duplicating an existing policy creates a new policy and retains the same settings and values as the original policy, except that assignment assignments are not copied.

Starting in Intune Service Release 2111, a new feature has been added that allows you to make a copy of the settings catalog policy with just a few clicks. This means you will not have to start from scratch when creating a device configuration profile, which should save a substantial amount of time.

By definition, the Settings catalog in Intune contains a comprehensive list of all the settings that can be customized. This feature simplifies how you create a policy, configure the settings and assign it to endpoints. The Intune Settings Catalog is frequently updated, and Microsoft adds new settings with almost every new release.

What happens when you duplicate Intune Settings Catalog Policy?

When you duplicate a settings catalog policy in Intune, it creates an exact copy of an existing settings catalog profile. The new copy has the same setting configurations and scope tags as the original profile, but no assignments are associated with it.

I recommend checking the settings included in the existing policy in Intune before duplicating it. That’s because a device configuration profile may include more than one set of settings.

It is also important that you rename this duplicate policy with a unique name. Having two device configuration profiles with the same name is not only confusing, but it can also take a while to discern which one is the original.

You should not use the duplicate policy feature if you are creating a new device configuration profile with settings that are entirely different from those defined in existing profiles.

Supported Platforms for Duplicating Policy

You can duplicate a device configuration profile of settings catalog type in Intune for the following device types:

• Windows devices
• iOS/iPadOS devices
• macOS devices
• Android

When you create a policy in Intune, there are two types of policies: Settings Catalog, Properties Catalog, and Templates. Custom policies and Templates cannot be duplicated in Intune; only the Settings catalog policies support duplication.

Duplicate Settings Catalog Policy In Intune

Let’s see how to duplicate a settings catalog policy in Intune. As an example, I will select an existing policy, “Configure Power options via Intune” that is used for configuring power options for Windows devices using Intune.

• Sign in to the Microsoft Intune Admin Center.
• Go to Devices > Windows > Configuration.
• Find the profile that you want to copy. Click the ellipses context menu.
• Select Duplicate to create a copy of an existing settings catalog profile.

Now you see a Duplicate Policy window and the following information is displayed to the user: “Duplicating a policy creates a new and distinct policy containing the same settings and values as the original policy. Assignments will not be copied”.

Enter the new name for the duplicated policy and add a brief description. This will help other Intune administrators identify this policy easily. Click Save. A notification appears in the top-right corner of the Intune admin center, “Policy created successfully” indicating that you have duplicated the settings catalog policy.

In the screenshot below, we see the original settings catalog policy and the duplicate policy that we created in the above step. For all newly created configuration profiles, Intune adds a “NEW” badge to help administrators identify the profile.

Check the duplicated policy settings

Let’s take a look at the policy settings that are copied over to the newly duplicated policy in Intune. Select the duplicated Settings catalog policy from the list of Configuration Profiles. You’ll notice the following things about this new device configuration profile:

1. Basics: In the basics section of the policy, we see the policy name, description, and platform details.
2. Assignments: As mentioned earlier, when you duplicate a settings catalog policy in Intune, the assignments are not copied.
3. Scope Tags: The scope tags are retained from the parent configuration profile.
4. Configuration Settings: We see that all the configuration settings are inherited from the parent profile.

Unable to Duplicate Settings Catalog Policy

At times, when you attempt to make a copy of the settings catalog policy, the duplicate option is not available. That’s because the duplicate option is available only for the device configuration profile that is of type “Settings Catalog” in Intune, and not for Templates or Custom profiles.

In the screenshot below, we see that the duplicate option is not available for custom profile types. The only option you see is Delete, which basically removes the policy from Intune.