I see many people struggle to get started with Intune and Device Management in Microsoft 365. My recommendation is always to start with configuring Compliance policies. Doing so will give you:
1. A device inventory
2. A list of devices that fail to meet the minimum standards set for connection to corporate data
However, the major benefit is that, by default, Intune Compliance Policies make no change to any of the device or impact users productivity. In effect, Compliance Policies simply READ the status of a device and make NO changes.
You’ll find Compliance Policies under Devices in the Intune portal as shown above.
Typically, you’ll create at least one Compliance Policy for each different operating systems you have in your environment (i.e. for Windows, iOS, Android, etc). You can, of course, have as many different Compliance Policies as you desire, potentially targeted at different users and or devices. However, the policies you have, the more maintenance and troubleshooting will be required. It is therefore recommended to stick with a single Compliance Policy for each operating system.
During the policy creation you’ll see a screen as shown above in which you can set actions for devices that fail compliance. You will not that, by default, the only taken is simply to mark the devices as non compliant. That is the only action take. You can add more actions if you want, but importantly, by default, the only action taken is simply to mark devices as non compliant.
Once you have created and assigned the Compliance Policy the machines covered that policy will be evaluated and results reported back to Intune.
If devices are found that are not compliant, then you can take action to make them compliant before allowing them to access corporate data.
Above all, using compliance policies is a great way to get an inventory of all the devices in your environment and report their configuration. Of course, these Compliance Policies will continue to be evaluated regularly in case anything changes on the device.
The recommendation then is to start with Compliance Policies to take an inventory of your device fleet before proceeding further with Device management. If you want to read more about Modern Device Management then read my series of blog posts starting here:
CIAOPS 
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