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
(Admin, System Center Configuration Manager)
responded
I’m re activating this one based on the fact that we don’t show the intrusive reboot countdown after the software was installed. We still have some work to do here to make this experience meet the requested behavior.
111 comments
-
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.
-
Chris
commented
+1 for making this applicable to SUS desployments
-
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.
-
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?
-
David Qui
commented
I'm with Jose on this...this should have been included with the deployment of software updates. Huge let down...
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
andrewjohnporter
commented
Thanks Mark.
-
Tim
commented
The ability to show the notifications at each login or unlock would be sweet, or even make them recurring every X minutes.
-
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
-
Greg Isett
commented
Since you have the fast channel... and you’ll soon have customizable reboot notifications. Could we send a message to clients via fast channel to cause them to display a popup box containing not the reboot message but the text we send via fast channel?
-
andrewjohnporter
commented
When I spoke with the SCCM team in December they said they were looking into it but I imagine it's a difficult one to tackle because of the differing opinions of what people what the notifications to be like.
-
Anonymous
commented
Hello Andrew, for when is this scheduled?
-
ConfigMgrRSC
commented
Integration with the windows 10 notification center would also be very useful :)
-
Anonymous
commented
I would agree that the little notification that pops indicating a reboot is needed doesn’t stay up long enough most users miss it. If when the initial reboot notification opened the reboot countdown window above the clock and stay there until the user clicks hide and then stays for the specified time like it currently has the option would be better.
-
Anonymous
commented
Please increase the maximum reboot countdown. We requrire a countdown in the order of two weeks to allow academics running long simulations time to complete them.
-
Jeff
commented
If possible, just though.. also roll in option to do full scan on reboot prior to doing a full evaluation cycle on restart / prior to initiating any further installs.
-
Tim
commented
Displaying all notifications each time the screen is unlocked or the users log in might help here also.
Bright, obnoxious high contrast colors too. -
Tim
commented
A fully customizable notification process would be great.
Up to 6 different notifications
1. Available
2. Downloading
3. Installing
4. Reboot pending
5. Scanning Post reboot status, more updates waiting or no updates pending.
If more updates waiting, repeat the notification until none are pending.Ideally each notification step would have customizable text and a pop up timer (how long to keep the pop up alive) as well as a options to allow user interaction (close or not close pop up), how many times and how often to repeat.
A transparent notification across the desktop with a timer until reboot or deadline would be amazing too!!