MD-102 Endpoint Administrator — realistic study timeline for someone coming from an SCCM background?
I've been doing SCCM and Intune work for about four years and I'm planning to sit the MD-102 in roughly eight weeks. From what I've seen, the exam leans heavily on Intune, Autopilot, and compliance policies, which are areas I work in daily. But the identity and access management integration questions sound like they could be tricky if you're not already deep in Entra ID.
My plan is 90 minutes a day on weekdays, mostly going through Microsoft Learn paths and doing timed practice sets every Friday. I'm targeting around 850 on the actual exam since I need this for a promotion review. Has anyone with a similar background found certain domains hit harder than others on exam day?
I've heard the case study questions at the end can eat up a lot of time. One person told me they spent 25 minutes on a single case study and ran short on time for the last 10 questions. If that's accurate I'll definitely want to practice pacing more carefully than I have been.
Any specific topics you'd say are over-represented relative to what the exam guide implies? I feel like my Autopilot knowledge is solid but I'm less confident on co-management scenarios with Configuration Manager still in the mix.
Eight weeks sounds right for your experience level. I did it in six weeks coming from a similar Intune-heavy background and passed with 856. The Entra ID conditional access and compliance score stuff was worth more on my exam than the objectives document suggested.
The case study format is real and yes it eats time. I'd recommend giving yourself a hard 18-minute cap per case study and moving on even if you're not 100% sure. I passed with 834 doing exactly that, whereas my colleague who answered every case study thoroughly ran out of time and scored 698.
Identity governance questions caught me off guard too. I'd done maybe 10% of my study time on that area and it felt like closer to 18–20% of the actual questions. If I retook it, I'd rebalance my prep to account for that.
Coming from a pure SCCM background, the Autopilot and Intune co-management pieces were the heaviest part of my exam. I scored 812 and probably left 20 points on the table just from co-management edge cases. Definitely spend extra time there.
Quick update on my end since I'm in a similar boat — got a 74% on a practice set last night focusing on device enrollment and compliance policies, which honestly felt better than I expected given I hadn't touched some of the Autopilot scenarios in a while. I've been using a mix of Microsoft Learn and free md 102 managing device and data questions to fill the gaps, and that second resource especially helped me realize how much I was assuming I knew versus actually knowing.
I'm planning to sit the real thing in about three weeks. Coming from an SCCM background I found the co-management and workload switching stuff clicked pretty fast, but the Entra ID conditional access integration tripped me up more than I expected. If you're already doing hands-on Intune daily, I wouldn't stress too much — just make sure you're not skipping the identity side because it's easier to assume you know it.