Overview of Policies

Introduction

The Policies module in the Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) enables IT administrators to enforce configuration standards, security baselines, and compliance rules across managed devices. Without a centralized policy engine, organizations often struggle to maintain alignment across a dynamic and distributed device environment.

With Policies, you can define automated system behaviors that maintain a desired configuration state and ensure consistent enforcement without manual intervention. Policies can be applied through device groups—such as static, dynamic, or Entra ID-based—and work in tandem with scripts and remediations to uphold IT governance.

Policies act as the enforcement layer for maintaining consistent device configurations and security postures. Integrated into remediation and compliance workflows, they proactively ensure that endpoints remain aligned with corporate standards. This capability helps IT teams reduce risk, maintain compliance, and automate configuration changes at scale.

Policy Types

• Configuration Policies (System-Level Enforcement): These policies define and maintain system-level settings such as BIOS configurations, firewall enablement, and secure boot. They ensure consistency across all devices through automated enforcement and correction of configuration drift. Policies can be applied directly or integrated with management tools like Microsoft Intune.

• Security Policies (Baseline Enforcement and Remediation): These policies set baseline security settings, such as enabling antivirus, BitLocker encryption, and Windows Defender. They are continuously monitored to detect and correct any deviations. These policies align with Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) remediations, compliance requirements, and industry best practices.

• Compliance Policies (Audit-Focused Enforcement): These policies ensure that devices comply with internal standards, legal requirements, and industry regulations. In addition:

  • All policy actions are logged for auditing and reporting purposes.
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is supported to restrict access to sensitive enforcement actions.

Target Audience

• IT Administrators who define and manage policies for enforcement
• Security & Compliance Teams who monitor policy adherence and audit readiness
• Help Desk & IT Technicians who investigate and fix policy enforcement issues

Key Features

Some of the core capabilities include:

• Centralized policy management: Define and manage all policies from a single interface. This will enable targeted enforcement by linking policies to device groups.
• Automated enforcement: Apply policies automatically as devices join or change state, and detect and remediate configuration drift without manual intervention.
• Security and compliance integration: Align policies with vulnerability scans and baseline configurations, while logging all changes for audit and compliance tracking.
• Integration with recommended actions and groups: Trigger policies as part of remediation workflows or apply them proactively using static, dynamic, or Entra ID-based groups for context-aware enforcement.
• Configuration drift correction: Automatically detect deviations from expected settings and reapply policies to restore compliance, reducing manual overhead and risk.

Use cases

1. Security baseline enforcement (dynamic group policy)
   Scenario: Your company want ensure that BitLocker encryption is enabled on all enterprise laptops.
   Solution: Define a policy to enforce BitLocker encryption and assign it to a dynamic group of Windows 11 laptops. All matching devices receive the policy automatically, and non-compliant ones are flagged and remediated.

2. Configuration drift correction (policy reapplication)
   Scenario: Some devices show that Windows Defender has been turned off manually.
   Solution: The policy engine detects the drift and re-applies the expected configuration. A log entry is created for audit tracking, and the device returns to a compliant state without user intervention.

3. Direct BIOS policy application (script vs. policy option)
   Scenario: Your organization wants successfully roll out a BIOS update across its fleet.
   Solution: Rather than using a script, opt to "Apply Policy" option to bypass external tools and enforce the BIOS update through the policy engine. This ensures standardized deployment and tracking within the platform.