Feature Request - Schedules with start and end time but no date
It would be great if there was an option to set a start and end time for a schedule but without a date so that it can continually run between those set hours of the day.
The reason for this is that I would like to prevent deployments from running at the end of the day around the time I leave the office. This way my laptop will not have any deployments running that get cut off in the middle when I leave and I wont have to go in and manually stop deployments.
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Hi Mmuni,
This feature has been submitted is being considered by the developers for a future release.
Hello. Is this feature available in PDQ Deploy 14 R2 or is it still being considered? I would like to schedule an auto deployment to run only between the hours of 7am and 3pm because devices in my workplace are usually online between those hours and it is the best time to install updates. Right now, I have a schedule for an auto deployment in place to run every hour on the hour but after 3pm, it's just a waste because most devices are offline at this point. These devices are laptops on a wireless network so I can't use WOL to wake them up like I can our wired devices.
Thank you for your request. We have an existing internal feature request ticket for this. I have no ETA on when it could be implemented.
In the meantime, here's a post where I gave suggestions for a similar situation in Inventory: https://support.pdq.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115001168291-How-do-I-set-PDQ-to-only-scan-between-certain-times-of-the-day-?page=1#community_comment_115000752592
That won’t really work for this. The start of the deployments is not an issue, the issue is preventing new deployments that are queued after a set time while not interrupting deployments that have already started deploying on a machine.
Example let’s say I have a deployment that normally takes 4 hours to fully deploy to all machines. Also I need to stop all deployments at a specific time and prevent new deployments after that time. Lets use 3:30PM as an example cut off for deployments. Scheduled deployments should know not to start new deployments after 3:30PM but at the same time Existing deployments that started at 3:00PM will also need to cancel deployment for any machines that are queued but have not yet started the deployment process.
another way to look at it would be, during the given time frame:
#1 Prevent new deployments
#2 cancel deployments to machines that are queued and have not yet started step 1 of the deployment.
#3 any machine that has already had step 1 of a deployment set to it will be allowed to continue its full deployment.
This would also be very useful for creating a window of time when you know no deployments will be running and you can schedule the PDQ machine to install updates and reboot without worry that a deployment will be stopped mid way through the deployment process.
Sorry, I meant to specify that my workaround was for Heath Grim.
For Mmuni, if you have an Enterprise license you could set up a console in Server mode on a machine inside your network and change your laptop to Client mode. That way removing your laptop from the network won't interrupt running deployments.
If that doesn't work for you, then you could use my #1 for your #1. It's annoying to set up, but it gives you granular control over when the schedule kicks off. For #2 and #3 you could handle that with a PowerShell script.
https://gist.github.com/Colby-PDQ/38d033889303e42faf0648aa7d2ec2fe
mmuni, Heath Grim
We added a time frame to the Interval and Heartbeat Triggers in 18.3.2.0 (18.3 Beta 1).
Here's what it will look like in Beta 2. This Trigger will go off every day at 8:00, 9:00, and 10:00.