If an action is configured with both “Start client downloads before constraints are met” and “Stagger action downloads over X minutes to reduce network load”, what is the result?
What I’m trying to accomplish is for the clients to begin their prefetches before the action start time arrives, but to stagger their prefetch downloads over some number of minutes in the meantime.
It is not “Stagger action downloads over X minutes to reduce network load”. It is “Stagger action start times over …”.
and so it is about entire action and it works only after the time you set in the option “Starts on” on Execution tab.
If you select “Start client downloads before constraints are met”, all downloads are started immediately after you create action and they are not staggered.
If you select both of them, this does not provide you want. all downloads start immediately after you create action and the action start times are staggered over the period you set.
you may consider to create an action to only download the contents and run it with staggered option and then
a second action to do remaining parts. so you can stagger downloads and the downloads are finished by the time you targeted.
The wording on the Take Action dialog changed, it’s shown as “Stagger action downloads” in the 9.5.4 console. I was hoping that came with a change in behavior.
I also have 9.5.4 console and when I checked the dialog, I can see that it is not changed as you mentioned.
The options are
“Start client downloads before …”
“Stagger action start times …”
here is my screenshot. Is it different in your console ?
Yes, my console looks different…but it appears that the text is different depending on Single Action/Fixlet vs Multiple Action/Baseline
very interesting 
Reading a client log, I think the behavior has changed, but I’d really like some IBM confirmation on it…here, on action 918550 in group 918546, it really looks like the client is observing the delay before making the download request…
At 14:30:34 -0500 -
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918549) Distributed - time has arrived
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918550) Action signature verified for Downloads
DownloadsAvailable: checking for 'http://myrelay:52311/bfmirror/downloads/918550/0'
DownloadsAvailable: true (action id 918550)
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918550) Action temporal distribution - delay for 44 seconds.
At 14:30:49 -0500 -
DownloadPing command received (ID=918554)
At 14:31:05 -0500 -
DownloadPing command received (ID=918561)
At 14:31:19 -0500 -
DownloadsAvailable: checking for 'http://myrelay:52311/bfmirror/downloads/918550/0'
DownloadsAvailable: true (action id 918550)
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918550) Distributed - DownloadsAvailable
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918550) Submitting download request
ActionLogMessage: (group:918546,action918550) Download url: 'http://myserver.mycompany/myproduct.msi'Interestingly enough, it isn’t a difference between single/multiple actions. It’s relative to the setting for “start client downloads before constraints are satisfied.” If it’s UN-checked, the other checkbox is for “stagger action start times” but when it’s checked, the other checkbox is for “stagger action downloads.” Makes sense I guess – when caching downloads before constraints are satisfied, staggering the action start times wouldn’t stagger the downloads.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for the observation.
Hi Jason,
Actually i am looking for staggered action option in this post but i found that you are applying baseline as per maintenance window by checking the option “run only when”.
I am interested in how you have created this property and how you are managing the maintenance window, how you are changing this property value to closed so that patches will not get pushed on the endpoints.
This will be very helpful as similar requirement i have with by customers.
Thanks,
Akshay