We’re pleased to announce that we’re putting the finishing touches on the next Dashboard release, which has a trio of feature enhancements in store:

• Bulk Edit Tasks: Select a Client, Site or set of individual servers or workstations to see all the Automated Tasks on those devices. Then select a Task to edit its settings across all the devices in one go.

• New Script Checks and Automated Tasks: We’re adding a set of checks and tasks to help you manage devices pro-actively and drive greater automation across your estate.

• ‘Client Group’ support for Asset Tracking and twenty more Dashboard reports: Now all but two reports (see notes below) restrict  data so they only show customers that are in a user’s Client Group, which can be set as part of Roles & Permissions. The same goes for Asset Tracking, this now also shows just the clients that are in a user’s Client Group.

We’re also releasing a new RC Agent, v10.0.1, as we continue the roll-out of the new real-time architecture, following its successful launch a couple of weeks ago.

And last but not least, we’re getting ready with a Bitdefender engine upgrade for Managed Antivirus, aimed at improving performance. This will be rolled out separately from the main Dashboard release, we’ll keep you posted of our progress. We’ve also put together a document with more information on controlling Bitdefender engine upgrades, see here for more information.

All the details…
Here’s a detailed description of what’s coming in this release:

Bulk Edit Tasks

1. The new Bulk Edit Task feature uses the same workflow as the existing Bulk Run Task feature. Right-click on a client, site or selection of devices in the north pane, then click Task > Edit from the context menu (1).

2. You’ll now see a list of all the automated tasks on those devices. Identical tasks are grouped together. For tasks to be identical they have to be 100% the same, including the schedule settings and the optional descriptive name field (2).

3. Select the task you want to edit. This will bring up the Automated Task dialogs where you can make the changes, just run through the steps and hit Next at the end (3).

4. See all the devices you’re about to update on the confirmation dialog. Uncheck any you want to exempt from the update, then click “Apply Edit” (4).

5. The update will now be processed. This may take a few minutes depending on how many devices you’re updating (5). You can check the user audit log for a completion message (6).
   
   

Note that the updates are applied to all devices, including any that are offline or overdue at the time. When they come back online they’ll automatically sync and get the updated Task settings.

While we were at it, we also improved the performance of Bulk Run Task, so it can handle more devices, up to 2000 at a time, just like the new Edit Task feature. We’re now working on the next set of enhancements for managing Tasks as scale: Bulk Add Task and Bulk Delete Task, with the same type of workflow. Stay tuned for future updates!

New Script Checks and Automated Tasks

We’re adding five new Script Checks for Windows Servers and Workstations, giving you a few additional tools with which to monitor and inspect customer devices. Here’s the list of new Checks:

• File Age check: Checks the data of a specific file and will fail it if the file is over x days old
• Thermal Zone Temperature Info check: Check the temperature of a device and make sure thermal management is performing correctly
• S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drive Info check: Show HDD and SSD manufacturer and related S.M.A.R.T. info
• Local Drive and Folder Size Info check: See how big sub-folders are for a specified drive or folder
• Installed Printer List Info check: See a list of all the installed printers on a device

To add a check, select Script Check from the Check menu, then look for the new System Control checks (7). Note that the ‘info’ checks don’t have a fail state as such, instead they give you information about the device.

We’re also adding four new Automated Tasks to help you pro-actively maintain and manage devices:

• Windows Machine Shutdown task: Run the task to shut down a server or workstation
• Delete Older Folders task: Automatically delete selected files older than x days
• Download and Extract Zip File task: Download a file from the web onto a machine
• User Notification task: Produce a popup notification with your text on the end-user’s device

Use the command line option to set parameters for the new Tasks and Checks. Refer to the ‘Usage’ text for instructions and an example of the input options (8).

Here’s how the new User Notification task shows up on the end-user’s desktop:

* Note that currently the header text isn’t customisable, we’ll look into adding this option in the future.

Client Group support for more Dashboard reports and Asset Tracking

Around half the Dashboard reports were already restricting data to just those clients in a user’s Client Group.* This is now extended to cover all the other reports where you can select Clients.

* Refresher: “Client Groups” were introduced as part of Roles & Permissions. Go to Settings > Users > Client Groups to create lists of customers, which you can then assign to Dashboard users. This way, they’ll only be able to see devices and data from those clients that belong to their assigned Client Group.

Please note: Two reports will continue to NOT restrict by Client Group: the User Audit Report and the Remote Support Report. These reports don’t let you filter the selection by Client and consequently include all clients (although in the Remote Support Report no clients or sites are actually named, it only shows devices and users). Based on your feedback we can look to add Client Group support to these reports as a future enhancement. You can of course restrict access to those reports in Roles & Permissions if you want to prevent users from seeing other clients in those reports.

For example, here’s a user with a Client Group that has just two customers in it. Now when you select e.g. the Web Protection Overview Report, it will now only show those two clients in the drop-down list (9).Similarly, if a user selects “All Clients” for a report such as the Notes Report, it will run the report over just those two clients (i.e. all of that user’s clients), ignoring any other clients outside of the user’s Client Group (10). 

Asset Tracking, including its reports, has also been updated so it now only shows clients in the user’s client group (11).

Full Release Notes…
The staging release notes are below. Please note that staging release notes are subject to change. Final release notes will go out with the release.

Summary for Service Release
– Service release focused on new features, bug fixes and performance
– Dashboard v6.14
– New RC Agent v10.0.1, no change to the GA Agent

Dashboard v6.14
FEATURE: Bulk edit Automated Tasks across clients, sites, devices with a new Edit Task feature in the context menu for devices and the client tree
UPDATE: Performance improvement to bulk Run Tasks to handle larger device numbers, up to 2000
UPDATE: Restrict data in all the reports that let you select Clients to the Clients in a user’s Client Group. NOTE: The User Audit Report and the Remote Support Report continue to show activity for all clients
UPDATE: Support for Client Groups in Asset Tracking so it only shows the Clients in a user’s Client Group
UPDATE: Introducing five new Script Checks for Windows devices
UPDATE: Introducing four new Automated Tasks for Windows devices
UPDATE: Added new section “System Control” to Script Checks/Tasks list, removed “Windows” section

UPDATE: Managed Antivirus Bitdefender Engine 5.3.28.761 update coming soon. This will released independently of the main Dashboard and Agent release. For more information on controlling Bitdefender engine upgrades see https://d11tq5wr9v9i6a.cloudfront.net/managedantivirus/mav_upgrade.html

Agent v10.0.1
UPDATE: Agent code updates and performance improvements
BUGFIX: Correct issue with SNMP Checks related to handling of the OIDs
BUGFIX: Correct issue causing the Exchange 2007+ script checks to fail