Pending policy for a mac

[Asifahmed]

Is there any way is there in JAMF , so that we can see for a mac if any JAMF policy is pending to be executed on it? Like as we can see in case of configuration profile.

[AJPinto]

JAMF does not have a mechanism that tells it when a policy has started. Policies will only report logs back to JAMF once a policy has finished. Before the policy has finished it will just show pending. There are ways to find out what is going on locally on the mac, but that cannot be exported to JAMF in any useful manner. 

[Asifahmed]

Yes, and I am looking for it just like config profile help us to make a sense that it is deployed or not. I will raise a feature request in JAMF then.

[AJPinto]

Just be aware configuration profiles and policies are fundamentally different. Though I agree, JAMF needs a "check-in" step for a policy where it reports that the device has received the policy. Basically something other than pending, because its not pending anymore. Its really annoying not knowing if a policy has ever made it to a device without digging on the device itself.

[mm2270]

I have to agree with this. This is especially frustrating when talking about policies that can take a long time to complete, such as caching a full macOS installer to the device in preparation for an upgrade. Even when manually calling the policy on the device, the policy stays as Pending in Jamf Pro for the entire time that policy is executing until it's done and uploads a log. It is a bit annoying. There's a visibility gap between when something begins and when it finishes in Jamf that they should figure out some way to address. That in between time is a bit of a black hole.

[mm2270]

You can see policies in scope for any Mac in Jamf Pro, but won't necessarily be able to tell when it will run, since some of that is dependent on things like trigger, execution frequency, when the policy last ran (if it's set to anything other than once per computer) and so on. The "in scope" policies can be found under Management > Policies when viewing a computer record.

[Asifahmed]

Make sense, so I need to raise a feature request for this. What I can understand from our conversation. 

[TechSpecialist]

If it is a policy, then you can package an (empty) file with a certain filename and have it installed in a hidden directory along with the policy itself. Then you can create a smart group that looks for this file's existence with the help of an Extension Attribute. This will then auto-populate based on your Inventory check-ins and auto-generate a list of Macs that have the file installed and thus have the policy executed.

But be careful, if there is an error in the policy, then it won't detect that. It just detects that the policy was 'done' either successful or not.

[Asifahmed]

Make sense.