[grace-baker Hexnode 15 January 2020 grace-baker Moderator]

Hey, Thanks for reaching out to us.

When the policy is mapped to the ‘User’, all the devices assigned to the user would be associated with the policy. When the policy mapping is shown as ‘direct’, the policy is mapped directly to the device.
When you delete a policy mapped to a user, the policy will be removed from all the devices assigned to that user. Whereas when the policy assigned to a device is deleted, only that particular device will be affected.

Cheers!
Grace Baker
Hexnode MDM