Settings

Policy Management > Settings

The Settings page schedules the interval for automatic deployment of all policies to all assigned machines.

Deployment Interval

This setting determines how frequently policy deployment occurs. Policies may be associated with machines, machine groups or organizations. As new machines appear or their existing associations are changed, policies may need to be deployed or re-deployed. Setting the deployment interval to manual requires the user to click the Apply Now button on the Policies page to deploy a policy.

Note: Policy Management has a recurring process that automatically detects view membership changes for all agent machines. This is a very intensive process. As such, the schedule for this process is not tied to the Deployment Interval. Instead, the view membership process runs once per hour on a schedule that is set by the system. In those cases where you want view membership to be re-evaluated immediately you can use the Machines > Reprocess Policies button for one or more selected machines.

Edit Schedule

A compliance check compares an agent settings with the policies assigned that agent to determine if it is in compliance. For policies that require a credential be set, Policy Management now sets a policy object status as out of compliance when the policy fails to be processed due to an unsupported operating system or invalid agent credentials.

Click Edit Schedule to display the Schedule Compliance Check window. Each type of recurrence—Once, Minutes, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly—displays additional options appropriate for that type of recurrence. Periodic scheduling includes setting start and end dates for the recurrence. Not all options are available for each task scheduled. Options can include:

• Schedule will be based on the timezone of the agent (rather than server) - If checked, time settings set in the Scheduler dialog reference the local time on the agent machine to determine when to run this task. If blank, time settings reference server time, based on the server time option selected in System > Preferences. Defaults from the System > Default Settings page.
• Distribution Window - Reschedules the task to a randomly selected time no later than the number of periods specified, to spread network traffic and server loading. For example, if the scheduled time for a task is 3:00 AM, and the distribution window is 1 hour, then the task schedule will be changed to run at a random time between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. Distribution Window must be less than or equal to the Recurrence Interval.
• Skip if offline - If checked and the machine is offline, skip and run the next scheduled period and time. If blank and the machine is offline, run the task as soon as the machine is online again. Applies only to recurring schedules, a 'Once' schedule always executes the next time the agent is online.
• Power up if offline - Windows only. If checked, powers up the machine if offline. Requires Wake-On-network or vPro and another managed system on the same network.
• Exclude the following time range - Applies only to the distribution window. If checked, specifies a time range to exclude the scheduling of a task within the distribution window. Specifying a time range outside of the distribution window is ignored by the scheduler.

Reset

• Removes the scheduled compliance check.