Jason has a good topic to help diagnose and troubleshoot this type of issue here: Tip: Troubleshooting Client Reponsiveness
In particular, check out the section called: “If the client is posting reports, but much less frequently than expected; is receiving GatherHashMV messages, but is slow to execute or report back Analysis results, there may be long-running evaluations”
This is also something that BigFix Support can help you troubleshoot as well.
That said, to answer your questions:
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Does a console needs to be active somewhere for the heartbeat to be sent? i.e. if no one is signed in to the desktop console, do the clients not send/receive any heartbeats?
- No. The Client manages the configured heartbeat, and does not require any input from other BigFix components (unless the heartbeat value is changed).
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What happens when multiple operators are signed in and have different heartbeat values set? Do they overlap, or does it operate on whoever has the lowest value?
- The Client Heartbeat value is a global configuration, and can only be changed by Master Operators. It is not possible for different operators to have different heartbeat values (though they can have different 'Mark as offline' values).
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Is this working-as-designed, or should we indeed expect to see an online device update its Last Report Time every 15 minutes reliably, assuming that’s the interval set for the heartbeat?
- It is not by design, no. However, depending on the amount of activity as well as the configuration of the Clients, you might consider tuning some parameters. This might include increasing the heartbeat interval, increasing the mark as offline interval (typically 3x the heartbeat), addressing long-running content evaluations, increasing the availability of CPU resources for the Client, and potentially some other approaches as well. I'd suggest starting with Jason's post linked above, and perhaps contacting BigFix Support as well for further assistance.