Microsoft has introduced new feature in System Center Configuration manager Build Version 1602  called Client Online Status .This is really cool and exciting feature which is really needed these days to know if the computer is online or offline (of course ,SCCM agent must be working and healthy which is different story).

A new status for clients is available for monitoring if a computer is online or not. A computer is considered online if it is connected to it's assigned management point. To indicate that the computer is online, the client sends ping-like messages to the management point. If the management point doesn't receive a message after 5 minutes, the client is considered offline.

How to Monitor the status of individual clients:

In the Configuration Manager console, click Assets and Compliance > Devices or choose a collection under Device Collections.

Beginning in version 1602 of Configuration Manager, the icons at the beginning of each row indicate the online status of the device:

For more detailed online status, add the client online status information to the device view by right-clicking the column header and clicking the online status fields you want to add. The columns you can add are

• Device Online Status indicates whether the client is currently online or offline. (This is the same information given by the icons).
• Last Online Time indicates when the client online status changed to online.
• Last Offline Time indicates when the status changed to offline.

Now ,coming to the subject line , wouldn’t it be nice to create Collection or SSRS Report for client online Status in Configmgr 1602 ?

If you want to create collection or SSRS Report  for Clients with online ,offline Status in 1602 and later build versions ,you must know the correct SQL views (SSRS) and wmi instance that store this information . Download the SQL views documentation for Configmgr 1602 from http://eskonr.com/2016/04/download-sccm-configmgr-1602-sql-views-documentation/

collections Uses WQL and Reports uses SQL .

For Collection , Client online Status stored in wmi namaspace : SMS_CollectionMemberClientBaselineStatus with CNIsOnline =True or False

For SSRS Report ,Client Online Status stored in view: v_CollectionMemberClientBaselineStatus with CNIsOnline=1 or 0

Once we know the wmi instance or SQL view,it is easy to create collection or SSRS Report.

To create collection ,Use the following WQL Code (subselected) for Online Clients:

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System where SMS_R_System.ResourceId in
(select resourceid from SMS_CollectionMemberClientBaselineStatus where SMS_CollectionMemberClientBaselineStatus.CNIsOnline = 1)

To Create SSRS Report ,Use the following SQL Code for Online Clients:

select Name,sitecode,Clientversion,LastHardwareScan,LastMPServerName,CNIsOnline,max(CNLastOfflineTime) CNLastOfflineTime ,
max(CNLastOnlineTime) CNLastOnlineTime
from v_CollectionMemberClientBaselineStatus
where CNIsOnline=1
group by Name,sitecode,Clientversion,LastHardwareScan,CNIsOnline,LastMPServerName
order by Name

Until Next!

Quick Post: There was a question on TechNet forum asking,about who created the collection ,More read http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e5ea645e-84ec-49ce-82f5-e5d92b0f49a5/details-on-sccm-collection-creation?forum=configmanagergeneral

I have seen few cases in Configmgr 2007 and less in Configmgr 2012 due to RBA ,that Configmgr guys will try to do something on collection but it ends at something that causes the resources to disappear from Configmgr database and later you know the consequences from top management. The easiest way to get the resources into Configmgr is,to run the discovery.

Recently peter posted a blog about Who created that deployment and who deleted that deployment but these posts mainly focus on the deployment part using Reports.

Through this post,i will provide you the information about collections like who created,who Modified ,who deleted and who deleted resources from the collection etc using Reports.

Unlike Configmgr 2007 ,Configmgr 2012 also have few ways to get the information about this 1) using Status messages queries 2 ) Default reports 3) Using SQL queries

I always prefer to use the Default report in Configmgr called ‘All messages for a specific message ID’ under status messages folder from your Configmgr SSRS reports folder to know who created ,deleted as other 2 methods are little complicated to search for the required information(compared to reports) and to write SQL queries.

So coming to the subject,you can run the default report but you need to know the description of the status message ID what you are looking for.

You can use below status message ID’s to know who did what on collections.

Report Results for Who deleted what Collections ?

If you are looking for information about Configmgr 2007,refer this post http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2013/10/01/how-to-determine-who-deleted-what-objects-in-the-configuration-manager-console.aspx

Hope it helps.

In this post, i will discuss about the requirement that i have got recently. Local team /manager wants to run the software update compliance report for their LBU machines (collections) to see if all the clients in collection are compliant or not for all the patches with released date between X date to Y date.

No matter whether all the patches that are requested/available in SCCM are deployed or not but it should appear in SCCM report if the clients are in good shape or not for specific period.

By default in SCCM, there are couple of reports available for software update compliance but if you want to know the compliance status for specific collection for all updates that exist in SCCM (no software update group here) between specific period let say Jan 1,2015 to Dec 31 2015 or X range to Y range.

How to generate software update compliance report for specific collection for all the updates available in SCCM within specific date ?

To create a report for this requirement, we need set of SQL views that have information about software updates ,collection,inventory of client etc.

Below are the SQL views that i used in this report:

v_GS_COMPUTER_SYSTEM

v_CICategories_All

v_CategoryInfo

v_gs_workstation_status

v_fullcollectionmembership

v_UpdateInfo

v_UpdateComplianceStatus

Download SSRS Report from Technet Gallery,Upload to your SSRS Folder ,change data source and run the report.

When you run the report ,it prompt for collection ,Start Date and End Date shown below.

The result what see in the report is excluded by superseded and expired updates (IsExpired=0 and IsSuperseded=0) .

The original report is taken from Garth post http://smsug.ca/blogs/garth_jones/archive/2009/02/25/patch-compliance-progression-report.aspx and modified to include the date prompt ,superseded,expired ,added inventory information like OS,update scan,IP address,Last reboot into the report.

Linked report to see list of updates for each client will be in the next post.

Beginning with Configmgr Version 1702, clients use boundary groups to find a new software update point. You can add individual software update points to different boundary groups to control which servers a client can find.

More information about boundary groups and its relation with  software update point changes in 1702 and 1706 ,please refer TechNet link  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/servers/deploy/configure/boundary-groups ,it has lot of information than i explain.

Few weeks ago ,i was looking at the boundaries and boundary groups that are configured for my environment with its fallback information (distribution point and software update point).

I find it hard to locate the boundaries that are configured with fallback distribution points and fallback software update point.Incase you want to know the list of boundaries/boundary groups that are configured with fallback options,there is no default report.

I have created SSRS report that will help to pull information from SQL database into nice reporting .

References:

Relationships:

How does the report work ?

Download the report from Technet Gallary , upload the report into Configmgr SSRS reports folder,change the data source and run the report.

When you run the report, it prompt for Site Code since all the boundary groups that you created must have assigned to specific Site Code for site assignment. If you have not assigned the boundary groups to any specific site code, they will not be listed here .

So choose the Site Code (Primary or Secondary) or select All

Boundary groups that are assigned with specific Site Code will be listed with following information.

Boundary Group Name ,Site system Role,Site Code,Fallback Boundary Group,Fallback Site System,Fallback DP,Fallback SUP.

Using compliance settings in Configmgr, you can do many tasks as part of compliance. In the last couple of blogs, we have utilized compliance settings to identify WU settings,automatic update,trusted publisher settings etc. http://eskonr.com/2017/10/configmgr-how-to-use-compliance-settings-to-check-the-windows-update-policy-settings-like-wuserver-usewuservernoautoupdate-on-clients/

In this blog post ,we will see how to use compliance settings to check for Windows update agent version if it is older or latest one as per https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/949104/how-to-update-the-windows-update-agent-to-the-latest-version.

The Windows Update Agent runs on each client computer and checks for availability of updates. If you are using configmgr ,when the software update scan cycle runs ,a scan request is passed to the Windows Update Agent (WUA). This WUA then connects to the WSUS server location that is listed in the local policy (this policy will be created at the time of configmgr client installation), retrieves the software updates metadata (update catalog) that has been synchronized on the WSUS server, and scans the client computer for the updates. To read further on software updates https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/sum/understand/software-updates-introduction

Daniel (PotentEngineer) has document all the versions of windows update agent on http://www.potentengineer.com/windows-update-agent-build-numbers-for-windows-7/

There are lot  cases on windows update issue which happened due to old version of windows update hence you need focus on brining the windows update agent to latest supported version.

I will not go in-detail (step by step) about how to create configuration Item and Configuration baseline instead ,i will guide you through the settings that you need configure for Windows update agent.

Though the configurations used in the settings/creation of rule in compliance setting is very simple ,i would like to get it in this blog post along with SQL Query and WQL collection to identify how many clients in your organisation are running older .

1.Define Compliance setting for the applicable OS (Windows update agent varies from OS to OS)  .This blog post focus on windows 7.

Once you deploy the configuration baseline to collection ,clients will perform the CI evaluation and send the results to Configmgr which will help you to create collection from the baseline results and deploy latest windows update agent.

Compliance Item :

New setting:

New Rule:  Replace the windows update agent that you are looking for.

Note: The above WUA agent is only for windows 7 hence you need to configure the OS while creation of CI or deploy this to only windows 7 collection.

If you want to create the rule for multiple OS to check WUA version ,you can try something like below (it is untested at the time of writing the blog post).

Make sure you add the latest version of windows update agent into the one of list.

2.WQL Query for collection:

Ronni has nice post on this ,please follow it https://www.ronnipedersen.com/2015/06/04/updating-the-windows-update-agent-on-windows-7-clients/

3.SQL Query:

Windows update agent version stored in v_GS_WINDOWSUPDATEAGENTVERSION  SQL view.

We will use this SQL view to find count of versions.

select a.version0 as 'WUA Version', count(*) as 'Total'
from v_GS_WINDOWSUPDATEAGENTVERSION as a
group by a.version0
order by 2 desc

More information http://eskonr.com/2010/02/sccm-collection-for-windows-update-agent/ 

Using this ,you can create nice SSRS report .you can also create drilldown report to find what are the machines that are running lower versions with computer name ,user name etc.

List of SCCM Configmgr SQL views documentation is available on TechNet https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCCM-Configmgr-2012-R2-SQL-5fefdd3b

I was looking at the console other day and found that, there were many collections created in the root folder (device collection) with 0 count. So i looked at the collection properties ,i found empty there  (No direct or query based rule).

So i decided to write SQL query to identify the list of collections that have empty results with no query rules (Direct or query based) defined in it.

For this query ,i have used 2 SQL views (v_Collection and v_CollectionRuleQuery ) .

For full list of SQL views that exist in SCCM Configmgr ,please refer https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCCM-Configmgr-2012-R2-SQL-5fefdd3b .

Following is the SQL Code to identify empty collections with no query rule defined ,You can delete these collections to simplify the list of collections displayed when deploying objects as part of maintenance tasks ,unless there is a reason to be in the console.

You can use the following code to create SSRS report as well.

select coll.CollectionID,coll.Name,
case when coll.CollectionType='1' then 'User' else 'Device' end as 'Collection Type'
from v_Collection coll
where coll.collectionid not in (select CRQ.collectionid from v_CollectionRuleQuery CRQ)
and coll.MemberCount=0
group by coll.CollectionID,coll.Name,coll.CollectionType

Configuration manager Technical preview 1708 has ability to identify Applications without deployments and Empty collections as part of Management insights.  More information ,please read https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/get-started/capabilities-in-technical-preview-1708#management-insights

Hope it helps!

Introduction:

Boundaries for SCCM define network locations on your intranet that can contain devices that you want to manage. Boundary groups are logical groups of boundaries that you configure. For more information click here

Few days ago ,Jason Sandy’s has blogged about boundary group caching and missing boundaries ,more details ,read through https://home.configmgrftw.com/boundary-group-caching-and-missing-boundaries-in-configmgr .

This is one of the highly needed solution that everyone must implement in their environment to evaluate what is their accuracy of the boundaries /boundary groups defined. Boundaries play major role for site assignment and content download. If you do not define the boundaries correctly,client will not function as expected hence it take up lot of your time to troubleshoot and identify it is because of missing boundaries and it is recurring issue.

Jason has covered most of the part about missing boundaries,Boundary group caching ,wmi location and basic SQL query . In this blog post, i am going to show you how to get list of the clients devices that are missing in the boundaries/boundary groups using SSRS Report and troubleshoot these devices. Sometimes You may see something like ‘waiting for content download forever’ in software center and this is because of boundaries/boundary group are missing .

This blog post will help you to identify such client devices with its basic  inventory information like OS,hardware inventory ,software update scan,IP address, last reboot etc.

You can also use other methods to achieve this solution using Compliance Item/baseline but HINV method will give you more information and better reporting .

How to create report/upload report ?

Before you download the report ,please make the necessary changes as per the guideline from Jason Sandy's post.

Following are quick points to implement the changes:

1.Open SCCM console ,go to client settings, edit default client settings ,hardware inventory ,set classes,add,choose the wmi namespace and add ,once the boundary group cache added ,uncheck it from default settings and click ok. For more information ,how to add custom inventory ,you can refer guide here

2.Go to your custom client agent settings (if you have ,else you can make these changes in default client settings)

,hardware inventory ,set classes ,choose the class name that we added in default client agent settings.

3.Monitor dataldr.log to see if these changes are processing and view are created in SQL database (v_GS_BOUNDARYGROUPCACHE).

Once you are done with above steps ,download the SSRS report from Technet Gallary ,upload to your SCCM reports ,change the data source and run it.

Report will display the following information. This report is created with filter Client0='1' .I do not want to display the client information that do not have SCCM client .

Note: As of CB 1610, all clients that do not fall within the scope of a defined boundary group will be associated with the Default Boundary Group. This is not reflected in the BoundaryGroupCache class. Essentially, if the instance of the BoundaryGroupCache class contains no BoundaryGroupIDs, then the client is considered within the scope of the Default Boundary Group.

How to troubleshoot these missing boundaries that are displayed in report:

1. From the report, we see that ,it has one device with its IP address . So we can go back to SCCM console ,look at under boundaries if the this IP address is part of the specified boundaries or not (it is ALWAYS recommended go with IP address range while defining the boundaries unless you have any specific reason not to use it) .

2.Make sure the client device has sent the inventory report successfully after you have made changes in the HINV and they are deployed to collection.

3.If the IP address is defined in boundaries ,check for boundary group ,if it is not ,add to boundary group with site system role .

4.If the IP address is part of boundaries and boundary group .what else can cause the client device appear in this report ?

5. If boundaries and boundary groups are added correctly ,MP must have returned the list of the distribution points that are configured in boundary groups for client to pick for content download.

6.If all above points looks ok ,would suggest to take a look at the client device logs (clientlocation.log ,locationservices.log and ContentTransferManager.log that will help you to identify the DP details.

Happy troubleshooting!

Beginning with the release of SCCM ConfigMgr Build 1710 or later , you can use the SCCM Console to identify client devices that require a restart, and then use a client notification action to restart them. If you want get this feature enabled on the client side ,you must also upgrade clients to version 1710 or later for this capability to function

This become so much easier for SCCM engineers to restart the device with just one click .

To identify devices that are pending a restart, you can go to the Assets and Compliance workspace and select the Devices node ,then right click on the right side details pane in a new column named Pending Restart.

Once you choose this, you can sort with pending restart to see list of all devices with client state .

Each device has one or more of the following values:

• No: there is no pending restart
• Configuration Manager: this value comes from the client reboot coordinator component (RebootCoordinator.log)
• File rename: this value comes from Windows reporting a pending file rename operation (HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager, PendingFileRenameOperations)
• Windows Update: this value comes from the Windows Update Agent reporting a pending restart is required for one or more updates (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\RebootRequired)
• Add or remove feature: this value comes from the Windows component-based servicing reporting the addition or removal of a Windows feature requires a restart (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\Reboot Pending)

To restart the device ,you can simply right Right-click on the device, select Client Notification, and then select Restart. An information window opens about the restart. Click OK to confirm the restart request.

When the notification is received by a client, a Software Center notification window opens to inform the user about the restart. By default, the restart occurs after 90 minutes. You can modify the restart time by configuring client settings.

Settings for the restart behaviour are found on the Computer restart tab of the default settings.

If you want to know the list of pending reboot devices ,it is not always good to follow the steps that we did above .It doesn't give us the number of devices pending with reboot also ,you need to add the column and sort to find out how many.

In this blog post ,what we will see on how to create a dynamic collection that list all devices with pending reboot. This collection always be on your check list for troubleshooting.

Also ,i will get you nice SSRS report/s that show you the count of pending reboot devices against the collection Operating System and then it will have drilldown report to see list of all clients with client inventory.

Before we start creating collection with pending reboot ,we need to know ,where does this information store in WMI. Collection uses WQL hence you need to have the class and instance name.

Restart information stored in sms_combineddeviceresources with value clientstate.

Anything that is not 0 (clientstate!=0) will be treated as pending reboot.

Following are the list of applicable states you get with client pending reboot.

1 – Configuration Manager
2 – File Rename
3 – Configuration Manager, File Rename
4 – Windows Update
5 – Configuration Manager, Windows Update
6 – File Rename, Windows Update
7 – Configuration Manager, File Rename, Windows Update
8 – Add or Remove Feature
9 – Configuration Manager, Add or Remove Feature
10 – File Rename, Add or Remove Feature
11 – Configuration Manager, File Rename, Add or Remove Feature
12 – Windows Update, Add or Remove Feature
13 – Configuration Manager, Windows Update, Add or Remove Feature
14 – File Rename, Windows Update, Add or Remove Feature
15 – Configuration Manager, File Rename, Windows Update, Add or Remove Feature

Create a device collection ,choose query based and paste the following WQL Code into it.

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,
SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System join sms_combineddeviceresources on
sms_combineddeviceresources.resourceid = sms_r_system.resourceid
where sms_combineddeviceresources.clientstate != 0

we have just created a collection to know the list of devices with pending reboot. You can now decide if you can reboot them using client notification or not.

How to reboot all devices at once ? you cannot do it by right click on collection , you must go into the collection ,choose all devices ,right click and do client notification . Collection level do not have reboot option.

Now we will look at SSRS report.

With the information that is available in SCCM ,we can have variety of reports however ,i am going with following customisations.

A report with custom collection and device restart type (Configuration Manager ,Add or Remove Feature etc ,multiple) .  It will show you count of Pending restart devices by Operating System.

The count will have drill down report to show list of clients with inventory information like last hardware inventory, IP address, last MP ,software update scan etc.

Parent Report:

Click on Pending Restart count appear in Blue colour to see list of all clients of that particular OS.

Child Report (Drilldown Report):

Child report has 3 parameters: Collection name ,Restart state name and OS .All these parameters will be passed to child report from parent report.

You might see pending reboot for clients that are inactive and this because , client never reported back to SCCM after pending restart status message and it will remain same until the device comes online and report its status.

You must run parent report to go child report. If you try to run child report directly ,you will run into issues which is expected and is because of hidden parameters in child report.

How to get the reports ?

Download the RDL files from Technet Gallery ,extract it ,upload the files to your SSRS reports (make sure both the reports in same folder location) ,change the datasource and run the reports.

Reference:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/meamcs/2019/01/10/understanding-and-using-the-pending-restart-feature-in-sccm-current-branch/

Introduction:

As a SCCM Configmgr administrator, one of your key responsibilities is to ensure the health of SCCM clients for tasks like application deployment, software updates, and inventory management.

Oftentimes, you may encounter situations where you need to identify computers that haven't contacted the server in a specific number of days or determine the clients with outdated policy requests or communication gaps.

This blog post aims to guide you on creating an SSRS report to present this information, allowing for easier troubleshooting and maintenance of SCCM clients.

Retrieving Client Activity Information:

In the Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) Console, you have the ability to view and monitor various client activities. These activities include policy requests, heartbeat DDR (Discovery Data Record), hardware scans, and management point as shown in below picture.

To begin, we need to retrieve the client activity information from the SQL database. The data is stored in a view called vWorkstationStatus, which can be joined with collection views to obtain the desired results. Below is an SQL query that retrieves clients whose LastPolicyRequest is more than 25 days old, filtered by a specific collection.

Below is SQL query ,if you want to create powershell grid view. (This query is filtered to get clients if LastPolicyRequest request is more than 25 days and collection).

SELECT ws.Name, ws.UserName,ws.LastMPServerName,
CONVERT ( varchar (26) , ws.CreationDate , 100) CreationDate,
CONVERT ( varchar (26) , ws.LastDDR , 100) LastDDR,
CONVERT ( varchar (26) , ws.LastPolicyRequest,100) LastPolicyRequest,
CONVERT ( varchar (26) , ws.LastHardwareScan,100) LastHardwareScan,
ws.SystemRole,
DATEDIFF ( DAY , ws.LastPolicyRequest , getdate() ) 'Days Since Last Communication'
FROM  vWorkstationStatus ws
JOIN dbo.v_FullCollectionMembership vfcm ON vfcm.ResourceID = ws.ResourceID
JOIN dbo.v_Collection vc ON vc.CollectionID = vfcm.CollectionID
WHERE vc.Name='Your collection Name'
GROUP BY ws.Name, ws.UserName,ws.CreationDate,ws.LastMPServerName,ws.LastDDR,
ws.LastPolicyRequest,ws.LastHardwareScan,ws.SystemRole
HAVING (datediff(dd,max(ws.LastPolicyRequest),getdate()-25) >0)

In SSRS Report, I have made 2 parameters as prompts 1) Collection Name and 2) Number of days .

Below is SSRS report how it looks like?

To access the complete SSRS report, download the RDL file from the provided TechNet here. Once downloaded, upload the report to your SSRS Reports folder. Don't forget to update the data source to connect to your SQL database. After making the necessary configurations, run the report to generate the desired results.

Conclusion:

By utilizing SSRS reports in SCCM, you can easily monitor and troubleshoot client communication issues. This blog post has provided you with an SQL query to retrieve client activity information and guided you through the process of creating an SSRS report. With this report, you can efficiently identify clients with outdated policy requests or communication gaps, enabling you to take appropriate actions to maintain the health of your SCCM environment.

Questions appeared on https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/b9940352-7382-462d-8ef9-8c7a1483a29f/sccm-client-last-communication-report?forum=configmanagerdeployment

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/5b21299a-d91a-43bd-bae7-dc02c09a8694/how-to-create-a-collection-based-on-days-since-last-communications?forum=configmanagerapps

https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/3l67e8/help_with_custom_report/