RFE Request - Post-Action - No Restart Option

Case number
TS000840017

Description
RFE Request: Currently, Post-Action options within an Action are limited to Restart or Shutdown. We request an option to utilize the Message area but not to Restart/Shutdown the endpoint. In other words, to display a message upon Action completion.

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@AlexaVonTess You can do this by going to Messages, and selecting, ‘Display message while running the action’. When the action is running, it will show it’s running state, however when it finishes it will show ‘Completed’ in the message. You can also modify the text in the message box.

completed

Thanks for the response. Yes, we use that option in some of our Actions, but it does not meet the requirements we would get from a Post-Action notice.

It’s a good feature request. Our company wound up developing our own “IT Splash Window” executable that did exactly what you mentioned. You can launch it at the end of any action.

It’s a good, self-contained project for anyone in IT to work on (think summer intern, IT newbie, etc.).

I decided not to wait for this feature so created our own as well several years ago that we still use as part of every software package we create. We use registry metadata added at the end of the action to trigger the message with the option to show either a success or failure message.

I would be interested in seeing how others have approached this.

image

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That’s interesting, how did you do that? Can you please share some insights on that?

Thanks in advance

Sounds like a good candidate for an RFE.

That’s very cool! You should sell that to IBM. :yum:

How about a link to th RFE so we can vote on it?

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=viewRfe&CR_ID=119851

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As I mentioned, we have our own 32-bit EXE “IT Splash Window”. The EXE is just another file that is downloaded to the system and executed at the beginning of the actionscript, specifically for interactive pushes (those that require user input/acknowledgement, such as drivers, bios, and VPN updates). Silent pushes DO NOT use this EXE and are therefore remain silent.

PROS: Notifies users, doesn’t break their VPN, etc. when installing.
CONS: This puts the BigFix action in a RUNNING state indefinitely, or at least until the IT Splash times out. All other actions are now in the BES Client action queue, and cannot run until this one is acted upon by the user. Because of this, we use this sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

Our EXE is launched via Actionscript with lots of parameters, including these below:

  • Beginning or Ending splash (this is the “you need this” vs. “all done” option)
  • Security vs. Non-Security splash
  • Title
  • Description
  • Estimated time to execute action
  • Multiple URL links and display text
  • Reboot/No Reboot indicator
  • Remind me later options
  • Master countdown timer (at which point the action will exit with a specific error code that you can work with in the next BigFix actionscript line, or just run the next line of code)

Again, this is a great stand-alone project for someone who needs to build their resume, and post something meaningful on Github. This, of course, does not have to be specific to BigFix, and could be used by any deployment tool. ( <-- am I allowed to say this on this forum??? LOL)