User Interaction - First Time User

[kirkd]

Hi Everyone, Our Mac laptop users tend to ignore emails asking to update apps via Self Service. I just got the green light to enable User Interaction on laptops to ultimately force the installs. Before I do this I want to be SURE that it will work as expected. The last thing I want to do is bother an end user with a notification that ultimately doesn't work.

My current policy (Symantec Endpoint Protection) is in Self Service with "Restart Immediately" enabled. My initial thought was to enable User Interaction with this policy. Once I got started, I wasn't sure if I should leave the Policy in Self Service or not. If the User clicks "Run Now" in User Interaction will the package install from Self Service or do I have to change my policy in some way?

If I enable User Interaction do I have to bother with a trigger or does clicking the button act as the trigger in this case?

I may be over thinking this; I have never used this feature and the admin guide doesn't provide much information. I have to be sure to get this right the first time.

I am currently running JSS 9.63

Thanks!

[iJake]

Just as a side note dealing with SEP 12 directly, you can install it without having to reboot. The script I use to start the services as the use is:

loggedInUser=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $3 }'`

#Start SEP 12 Services only if a user is logged in.
if [ "$loggedInUser" = "root" ]
then
exit
else
declare -x LoginWindowPID="$(/bin/ps -axww | /usr/bin/grep loginwindo[w] | /usr/bin/awk '/console/{print $1;exit}')"
/bin/launchctl bsexec "${LoginWindowPID:?}" /usr/bin/sudo -u "$loggedInUser" launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.symantec.uiagent.application.plist
fi

I also have remove any previous versions and stop those services if you'd like that as well.

[davidacland]

My normal process is to test the behaviour before scoping to user devices. I would test anything being sent out from Casper on a single Mac, then tentatively deploy to the rest. If there is anything that has user interaction, popups, notifications, messages, or at worst restarts, I would test the behaviour in a bit more depth and be sure it is going to do what I want.

Even with all that testing you can still get odd situations where something goes wrong, I guess thats why I tentatively deploy things over a few days rather than scope to all.

My experience of the run now button displayed to users is as it says though. It will just run the policy immediately.

[cwaldrip]

Always good to have a couple of test machines (if possible) to work with before deploying. Another good practice is to have a number of experienced users you can count on as a wider test group in the wild. So if everything seems fine on your test machines, you can deploy to a larger test group you can alert before hand to reply with issues they may see.

[kirkd]

Yeah, I am going to test a few of our loaner laptops before I deploy to production. I just wondered if anyone had real life experiences they could share with me regarding User Interaction.

On another note, Is there a way to change the header of the notification window that pops up? "Management Action" Looks like a virus to me. I would like to customize that if possible.

[benducklow]

@kirkd I know this is an old thread but I was digging back into the possibility of utilizing the built-in User Notifications with our users via Policies... As fas as I can tell the "Management Action" is default and is set by JAMF. I agree having this customizable would be nice, but I don't think its possible based on how JAMF integrated with the Mac OS X Notifications feature. (Maybe someone here can chime in on that...)

For us, we haven't used the User Interaction features of Casper due to the nature of different installation/policy requirements. We ended up developing internal script(s) to 'pop-up' before installations start (offering a 1,2,3 and 4 hour delay window for example) or packages/scripts that require a reboot. Currently JAMF doesn't have that 'timer' built in, just a end date/time deferment. Here is a start to something to address that piece: Deferral Limit as "net %days" or "%n times"