TL;DR: Make Phased Deployments for Applications the same as Phased Deployments for Task Sequences where you can create up to 10 phases and manually initiate the second phase of deployment.

Explanation:
Currently in 1806 although you can create a phased deployment for an Application, you're limited in two key areas:

1) You cannot manually create phases for an application
2) You cannot manually begin the second phase of deployment for an application
3) You are limited to 2 phases for an application

In our environment we follow a controlled graceful deployment process where an Application Model application is deployed office-by-office to prevent flood of support calls should an unexpected situation arise. Since we have multiple offices across the globe, a single application may have as many as 13 deployments, although it's typically around 6.

Phased Deployments is the solution here but it's usefulness in the context of Applications is limited. If it could match features available in Task Sequence deployments it would be of significant value.

Documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/apps/deploy-use/deploy-applications
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/osd/deploy-use/create-phased-deployment-for-task-sequence?toc=/sccm/apps/toc.json&bc=/sccm/apps/breadcrumb/toc.json
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/osd/deploy-use/create-phased-deployment-for-task-sequence

Currently when we want to run PowerShell commands in an ConfigMgr Application we need to wrap them in a script or run them with powershell.exe -command and make it a oneliner. This is because it's always triggered from cmd.exe.
Would be nice to be able to choose to directly start PowerShell.exe and just run the PowerShell command.
An example of what I'd like to achieve is to simply add that command in the "installation program" field.
Add-WindowsCapability -Online -LimitAccess -Name Tools.Graphics.DirectX~~~~0.0.1.0 -Source .
Currently we have to use this oneliner instead which is far more complex.
Powershell.exe -NoLogo -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "Add-WindowsCapability -Name "Tools.Graphics.DirectX~~~~0.0.1.0" -Online -LimitAccess -Source (Get-Location).Path ; if (!$?) { $Host.SetShouldExit($Error[0].Exception.HResult) }"

Currently, when users request an application through the Software Center, it will generate an email (if setup) allowing helpdesk to approve or deny the request. That feature works great and I think it is a good step forward. However, when the request is approved, no notification is sent back to the user. They would have to manually check the software center to see if the approval went through or if the system is still online outside of their defined business hours, it will automatically install. This is a poor experience from our standpoint as users tend to not notice these changes.

It would be nice to have SCCM automatically generate a notification to the user or generate an email alerting them that their application request was either approved or denied. Rather than manually checking the software center or waiting until an icon appeared on the desktop.

First off - Thank-you very much for the Email approval in CM 1810.
For the first improvement request, I'd like to request it be able to be sent to Manager or Application / Support owner already identified in the application.

These 3 options would cover nearly every workflow possibility instead of a hardcoded email address.

Usually you require permission from a BA or Business owner of the application, a Technical resource (Helpdesk, etc), or your Supervisor for an application. 2 of these items are already tracked in the application, and the third is (should) populated in AD for the requesting user.

Hello,

I would find it very useful if we had the ability to create a customisable pre-install message to customers for any application, package, software update or task sequence that is deployed to a client.

This would make it easier to provide pre-install instructions to customers such as making sure their device is connected to power, network cable or to close an application before the install continues. At the moment this is achieved by using a customisable HTA message but it's quite clunky.

It would also be useful to improve install behaviour and inplace upgrade checks which when they are not met, i.e. a customer doesn't have enough disk space or an application is open SCCM treats this as a failure when it is working completely as expected - I find this gives the user experience a bad impression when they see 'failure'.

thanks