SCCM updates: User Experience - Reboot notifications
Here is the User experience for the update process as I understand it:
1. System tray balloon appears saying 'software changes are required'
2. System tray balloon appears saying 'downloading and installing software'
3. System tray balloon appears saying 'Restart required: Recently installed updates require your machine to be restarted'
4. *It is here I would like the larger temporary notification reboot window to appear but it doesn't.
5. Permanent notification reboot window appears and stays on the screen
I would like option 4 to be possible. Without this it seems quite easy for users to miss seeing the balloon notification and therefore not know that a restart is coming.
It would be good if there was an option in Client Settings > Computer Restart to automatically show the temporary restart notification window. It would also be good if there was an option here to permanently set the 'SCNotification.exe' in Notification Area Icons to 'show icon and notification' to further improve the visibility to users of pending restarts so they know to save their work before they leave their computer for lunch or when they go home.
I've attached an image of the temporary notification window I am talking about
Thanks,
Andrew
andrewjohnporter
shared this idea
AdminMark Silvey - ConfigMgr Product Team
(Engineering Manager, ConfigMgr, System Center Configuration Manager)
responded
This is now complete and available in the 1906 release, the full documentation for feature can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/clients/deploy/device-restart-notifications
Thanks for all the feedback on this one!
120 comments
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Colin Feeser
commented
We would like to have the ability to customize the reboot message.
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Todd Mote
commented
Similar to this, is suppressing the software update notification for non-admin users on RDS? I have some regular users that installed updates and rebooted the RDS server from the notification popup.
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Jeff Field
commented
It looks like this is live in 1902 for software deployments but not software updates. Any chance we will see this feature come to those deployments as well?
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Anonymous
commented
Be nice to have some more options around the reboot client action just added like.
1. Reboot machine if no one logged in (for those critical machines you can't mtce windows)
2. Reboot machine when user logs out (to apply patches on like critical 24x7 machines)
3. Maybe a alert operators notification action as well that you can customise the message -
Anonymous
commented
I like that you could change to a dialogue box instead of the toast message by selecting the option in Client Settings. The problem with this is that the user will only see it if they chose to install the update prior to the deadline. But the user will never see that there are updates available for them to install because that notification is still only a toast message that goes away in a few seconds and never reappears. Apparently the dialog box notifying you about the deployment is only for applications. For 1906 I would like to see this dialog for Software Updates as well so the user will know there are updates available. The other part of this is about the restart dialog. It only appears until the deadline. After the deadline we have the same countdown messages that exist prior to 1902. The restart dialog should show after the deadline according to the time you set in Client Settings|Computer Restart for the temporary notification and the permanent notification. Or allow the temporary notification to popup periodically based on a frequency we can control in client settings. Right now I have the temporary notification set to 720 minutes and the final count down set to 240 minutes. I I would rather be able to have the temporary notification popup like maybe every 60 minutes so the user knows the reboot is coming. Then I can set the final countdown to a much lower number so that it is not in the users face for 240 minutes.
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Brian Knackstedt
commented
Would also be nice if the grace period used a dialog. I'm pretty fast with the mouse and I miss the toast notification most of the time. Maybe also add a configurable dialog timeout or default to 4 hours.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the whole notification system, business hours, grace period, etc was re-designed.
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We have an update to this feature available in the 1905 technical preview that is available today. We'd love it if you installed the technical preview and let us know what you think!
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/2019/technical-preview-1905#bkmk_restart
Thanks!
Mark -
James
commented
Let me get this straight. The new reboot function does not work for software updates??
The software updates are the most important thing we push and our company does not allow us to force reboots to complete the installation due to the fact most people don't see the toast notification. Please tell me this is going to be fixed soon!! -
Anonymous
commented
My CTO is concerned that in Windows 10 the toast notifications look very similar to the toast notifications for new email items. Most people see these as noise and do not pay attention. I also see the reboot icon in the notification area is kind of pushed out of sight until the mandatory 15 minute timer pops up that can not be dismissed.
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Brady
commented
Should the "new" dialog box respect the deployment deadline reminders that are configured in computer agent client settings? I'm not seeing that if so.
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Chris
commented
+1 for making this applicable to SUS desployments
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Glenn Turner
commented
I guess the important piece here is that if a user is proactive and installs the software ahead of the deadline, they will know to restart (and presumably need less prompting), but it's the non-proactive users we're trying to cater for, or those situations where we need to patch quickly without a delay between availability and deadline.
In our case, we make the Software Update available at 10AM, and have a deadline of 12PM in order to get the patch or software installed quickly, and then let the user restart on their schedule, but they do need to know when there is a restart pending (which is when the window would be useful instead of the toast).
I noticed that for required Application deployments in 1902, when we use our preferred "Display in Software Center, and only show notifications for computer restarts", the "When software changes are required, show a dialog window to the user instead of a toast notification" checkbox is greyed out. We'd want the ability to choose this option.
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Chris Sledge
commented
Mark can you elaborate a bit on what the new behavior is and what exactly is missing? Am I hearing right that it’s available for Applications but not Software updates?
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David Qui
commented
I'm with Jose on this...this should have been included with the deployment of software updates. Huge let down...
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This feature was primarily focused on allowing the reboot notification to be intrusive. We did also allow intrusive notifications for applications based on additional comments and other feedback channels. For other intrusive notification options and scenarios please post your suggestion so others can vote and comment on it.
Thanks!
Mark
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Jose B
commented
Why would you allow the option for a Dialog box pop up over toast notification only for Applications!? What about Deploy Software Updates Wizard!? This is mind boggling to me.
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Nectarios Gritzalis
commented
The new pop-up notification option in 1902 is overkill to solve a simple problem with Win10.
On Win7, when a balloon notification appeared, it would stay on the screen up until, and for a few seconds following the user performing an action resulting in far more visibility to the user for pending reboots etc..When the user unlocked the desktop, the notification would also be there.On Win10, this no longer is the case as the notification would appear and disappear regardless of user is present or not.
Our users will kill us if we implemented the new pop-up notification feature in 1902 as it is quite disruptive to the user.Since the SCCM client already traps if the user is present and if the session is unlocked(we see it in ccmexec.Log) a simple solution would be to just display the notifications when the user is actually present.
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andrewjohnporter
commented
Thanks Mark.
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Tim
commented
The ability to show the notifications at each login or unlock would be sweet, or even make them recurring every X minutes.
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JC1600
commented
Glad to see these new notifications features in 1902 TP! :)
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/2019/technical-preview-1902