Intune app assignments: which intent wins?
Four collisions between Microsoft Intune app assignments, the intent each one resolves to, and the order Intune settles intent and filters in, from Microsoft's own pages.
Required against Uninstall: Required
One user group gets an app as Required and another as Uninstall, with the same user in both. Required wins: Intune installs the app or keeps it installed. While both assignments target the user, the app stays. To uninstall it, Microsoft's steps say to remove the install assignment first. Microsoft's page on assigning apps to groups
Available against Uninstall: Uninstall
Between two user groups, Uninstall beats Available. The same holds between two device groups, where Available exists at all: for almost every app type and platform, Available is valid only for user groups. The exceptions are Win32 apps and apps for Android Enterprise fully managed (COBO) and corporate-owned personally enabled (COPE) devices, which can be Available to user or device groups.
User Available against Device Uninstall: Available
The user's group has the app as Available and the device's group has it as Uninstall. Intune resolves Available, and the app shows in the Company Portal. If the app is already installed from an earlier Required assignment, it is uninstalled. If the user then installs it from the Company Portal, it is installed and the uninstall isn't honored.
User Available against Device Required: both
The user's group has the app as Available and the device's group has it as Required. Both apply, merged into one intent, Required and Available, and the device evaluates the assignment filters on both assignments. Microsoft's assignment filter troubleshooting page
Intent first, filters second
Intune settles the intent before any assignment filter is evaluated, then passes the winning intent to the filtering engine. Where one intent wins, the device evaluates only that assignment's filter. Where the result is Required and Available, it evaluates the filters on both. So with conflicting app assignments a filter might not work as expected, and Microsoft's own line is that creating assignment conflicts for applications isn't recommended.
The app management chapter of the MD-102 Endpoint Administrator Complete Exam Guide carries the intent rules and assignment filters. The card below links it.
The guide
MD-102 Endpoint Administrator Complete Exam Guide
Prepare for Exam MD-102 by learning the enrollment limits, the support role that can wipe a device, and why a profile never lands.