Collecting IMEI from mobile devices

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Previously with ConfigMgr 2012 and Windows Intune it had not been possible to collect the IMEI from mobile devices with regular inventory. This was a real issue for Mobile Device Administrators. The IMEI is crucial information to have when dealing with the device vendors and Telcos.

However, recently, Cory Ferro (Program Manager, Enterprise Client and Mobility - Microsoft) published an excellent workaround which allows you to retrieve the IMEI for Windows Phone 8.1 devices. You can find it here and it really works.

This is an extract from the article:

"Windows Phone 8.1 has added a CSP to allow a GET request for the device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), a unique identifier for a mobile device. Inventory collection of mobile device IMEIs is not enabled by default, however it is possible to retrieve the value of Configuration Service Providers (CSP) nodes through inventory, provided these nodes provide GET operations. The steps provided below show you how to define a new inventory class using MOF (which will use URIs for the nodes/properties of interest), and importing the new class into Configuration Manager. Refer to the Windows Phone 8.1 MDM protocol documentation for information on available CSPs and properties."

The basic steps required are:

1. Create a MOF file from the text published by Cory

2. Save the file xxxx.MOF

3. Import the MOF to ConfigMgr Inventory classes

4. Create and run the query (instructions in Cory's blog). You may have to wait for a short while for the information to populate (a couple of hours for me).