Patch Auto Approval - Not working as expected

DP
DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭
in Patch Management

Hi all, I was really excited about patch auto approval, it was an essential missed feature. However, when enabling it, I've had nothing but issues.

  1. For some reason patches are auto excluding themselves - I have never excluded a patch and don't want the system to either
  2. Let's say you have a group of 20 laptops in the same profile
    1. The first laptop sees the update and the auto approval countdown begins
    2. Then another laptop comes online (or a few) sees the update from the API and pushes the entire PROFILE postpone date back again, and this continues to happen
    3. Today I checked a few automation profiles and half of the computers have the update, while the rest have a NEW seen date of only today (when that is surely not the case as most of these laptops are on daily - irrelevant really)

Does anyone else have this issue? What is going on? There is a case, but they aren't fixing it. The approvals should be based on group approval, not by machine.

Appreciate the discussion.

All the best, DP

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Comments

  • sarah+success
    sarah+success Member Posts: 70 ✭✭

    Hey @email , Sarah from Atera here.

    Thanks for reaching out. I have created a ticket for you to make sure everything with the patch approval is working correctly.

  • DP
    DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    Thanks @Sarah_from_Atera, support is already looking into it but has not found a solution. They have "replicated" the issue and will hopefully fix it ASAP. I'm surprised that more Atera users aren't encountering and commenting on this issue.

  • DP
    DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    Support has said it's working as designed - a horrible design, and are looking into reengineering how approvals work and display.

  • frank.pietersma
    frank.pietersma Member Posts: 78 ✭✭✭

    I am not using this feature. Was already scared there were going to be issues.
    Did they give you a timeline when they expect it to be fixed?
    In one of my recent tickets where it appears SNMP monitoring cannot correctly read free disk space of a NAS device some support guy said: We are planning to release this somewhere in a future release.
    The most vaguest answer I had in years. My Experience with Atera is that bug fixing can take a very, very long time, so beware.

  • DP
    DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    The last time I logged in, a survey appeared asking questions about confidence in Atera patching protocols. That would indicate they are asking for feedback before making changes.

    There are a lot of design issues with Atera that make my workflow so much more time consuming. For example, it's not possible to determine if a reboot is pending by looking at the device, and therefore advanced reporting, at an additional expense is required to show this type of data effectively. Also, when looking at a device, if the IT automation profile is clicked, to look at it, the browser back button doesn't work because they have redirects in place. So you have to push the back button 6 times really quickly to get back to the device page or do a loop to get back to the device… crazy.

  • sarah+success
    sarah+success Member Posts: 70 ✭✭

    Hi there everyone,

    We really appreciate this feedback, I have passed it along to the relevant Product Manager.

    We are looking into this, and will let you know of any updates!

  • yasminproduct16
    yasminproduct16 Internal Posts: 16 ✭

    Hi,

    Thank you so much for providing your feedback.
    I will assure you that we are taking your feedback and concerns very seriously.
    I'm going to reach out to you directly so we can discuss the topics you have mentioned but I'll also share here publically:
    1. Patch approval- we have been notified about this issue. The feature was indeed planned this way, so it is working as expected but we understand the issue and are currently working on changing the functionality.
    2. Reboot required information- this information is currently available on the devices page view, and you can also filter out the devices pending a reboot. We have also released the new devices page for a better experience and are adding additional features to it in the next few weeks. Please check it out and let me know what you think.
    Regarding adding this to the device page- it is planned. But it would be great to understand how you currently use it and what is the use case so we can develop the best solution.
    3. Navigating back from the automation profile to the device- this has been fixed and will be released in the next version release.

    Our main goal is to ensure Atera makes your lives easier and are constantly working on improving the product. We are here to hear your feedback and needs.
    Thank you,

    Yasmin

  • DP
    DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    Thanks Yasmin,

    The idea is that it's easier to click > folder which already has the filter applied >to see the group of devices you want to work on. e.g. send script, update, reboot, etc. Currently you can't sort or select (no check boxes).

    The device view has gotten better (adding sort and customer dropdown), but I would add a quick dropdown for folder as well as customer. The folder view within the customer isn't useful because you can't do anything with it. No check boxes, sorting, etc.

    Another improvement would be to allow selecting of devices that are queried via software inventory. So if I want to script the removal of software, I can select those machines. Currently, the boxes are greyed out.

    image.png

    "3. Navigating back from the automation profile to the device- this has been fixed and will be released in the next version release. - Great!"

    A bit more feedback or an indication that an update won't install until a restart has happened would be great. It's difficult to know what type of reboot is required (from windows updates or registry key change, etc).

    image.png

    Sometimes the patch won't install and you're not sure if it's due to a restart pending from a previous windows update.

    Thanks @Yasmin from Atera

  • yasminproduct16
    yasminproduct16 Internal Posts: 16 ✭

    Hey @DP -

    You can use the advanced filters on the devices page filter (not available on the new look yet but you can use it on the old look- WIP!). You can filter based on installed software and many other parameters and then perform bulk actions by selecting the devices that meet the filters.
    Noted about the patching reboot and we will look into it.

  • DP
    DP Member Posts: 56 ✭✭✭

    Thank you, it does look and perform better!


    I'm still struggling to get Win 2019 servers to reboot after installing updates. Let's say I manually install updates, by using the single computer patch management feature. I would assume that it would then follow the "config policy" and restart the machine after?

    image.png

    So what is the best way to force a reboot after install (not by having a separate profile to restart) as it seems most of these settings only work on W2022.

    image.png

  • yasminproduct16
    yasminproduct16 Internal Posts: 16 ✭

    Hi, the configuration policies will affect reboots from the IT Automation profiles and not manual upgrades on the device. You can manually perform a reboot on a device after patching and you will soon be able to schedule a future reboot.
    Best would be to jump on a live chat with our support team for immediate response and best practices :)

  • kim
    kim Member Posts: 113 ✭✭✭
    https://community.atera.com/discussion/comment/521#Comment_521

    This is awesome information! Thank you @Yasmin from Atera and @DP ! I will definitely be using these for my environment.

    Sincerely,

    Kim

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