I Have a Few Stupid Questions 1) That's a negative. Once a machine is offline, I haver only two options: "hide from list" or deletion via a big red 'X'. My only options for an offline device are to further cripple support efforts. Should I be looking somewhere other than the Remote Management portal? I only see the loading animation (three concentric thirds of a hoop rotating with a 1:2:3 period ratio) when a device is online and I am able to select "Show RMM info" (an option which is not available once a device is offline).
2) PCs with the RMM agent installed are sharing a plethora of useful information that could be used to identify or locate them. I guess a use case might be when a user calls up and asks for help, cannot be bothered to look down at the asset sticker, but gives you their name or user name- to find their machine among the, say, the thirty workstations at their site, one might just search for their username, et voila- workstation found! Time taken: ten seconds.
The user currently signed-in is indicated right there on the RMM information panel, but I must instead trawl through each device, click the sprocket > click on RMM info > watch those wheels spin.... and some more... then repeat until I find the machine at which the user is sat. Setting an arbitrary username as a label would be utterly pointless in a company whose two hundred employees can find themselves shuffled around or working at an unfamiliar location on any given day, but it is clear that this information is not persistent anyway so I guess a search of these terms will always necessitate a mass-refresh of RMM info., and even then I would only be able to search for machines that are online (again, not much use when trying to locate an otherwise anonymous workstation that, perhaps, might have lost network connectivity).
3) That's a negative also. As already stated, I can change the name of a server in the list, but no other devices (there is no pencil icon next to the name of a workstation). The only definable label I am afforded is the 'username' that can be assigned; as indicated, as this is not dynamic and many clients 'hot-seat', this label currently serves the better purpose of defining site locations (which do not tend to change without notice). I could do with being able to assign things like an asset number AND location without having two hundred defined 'usernames' assigned to connected devices (I only need one location label for any given group of devices). If I am able to change the name of a machine- in the list (to its asset ID, perhaps), I suppose I will no longer be able to search for it by its host name, which brings me back to points 1 and 2- basic information is not available to search, and is entirely unavailable once a device goes offline.
4) Thanks - this would bring the agent in line with one of the most common features of any centrally-managed software agent. I look forward to seeing this implemented.
5) I was attempting to demonstrate something to one of your support agents while viewing a remote computer through Connect. The executable they linked for me refused to open, calling the opened instance to focus instead. I attempted to open a separate instance of the installed Connect app, but this too refused to open in the appropriate mode to allow the support agent to view my screen; the support agent was nonplussed to say the least, so perhaps I should experiment a little more with this.
To be honest, this is not a crucial problem, so I would rather not waste my time on it - I will just continue to use alternatives if needed, and avoid asking for help with an issue that might require this specific scenario.
I have also not been able to consistently replicate the 'all windows vanish when one is closed' issue, so I'll bear with this in the hope that this will be rectified as the app matures. It is not a game-stopper, just an infrequent annoyance.
6) Okay, let's say I open the RMM info panel for "PC1" in one tab, then I open a second tab and navigate to the RMM panel for "PC2". I verify myself for the PowerShell applet on "PC2" and type "hostname"; the response is "PC2". Now I return to the first tab and do the same and the response is "PC2" - the first tab's actions are now directed to "PC2" instead of the selected "PC1". If the screen is refreshed, "PC2" is now the machine referenced in the portal on the first tab, but sometimes actions are hooked to "PC2" while "PC1" is indicated in the older tab. This one I can probably raise as a ticket as it would seem that this is not the expected behaviour.
Even simpler: open a tab and search for the first machine, then open a second tab and search for a different machine; now return to the first tab and refresh it- it is now a duplicate of the second tab. If this is not the experience of every user, perhaps my browser is to blame - I will experiment...
7) In light of the inconsistencies I perceive between the interface you describe (and appear to expect me to find), and the interface I actually have in front of me right now, I think I'll consider this one answered for the moment.
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Additionally, regarding CPU temperature warnings: mobile i5s (for instance) tend to edge over 80 degrees from time to time without straying from their package specifications, especially when the day is thirty degrees and eighty-ninety percent humidity. I would rather not turn off temperature warnings, but I get multiple alerts for devices that are comfortable bumping 81-83 degrees for a few minutes when the user runs a daily report on the sun-trap of their desk of an afternoon. It would be great if I could adjust the warning level. After all, if the manufacturer doesn't bother throttling anything before it breaches eighty degrees, the threshold for the warning is clearly too low for some devices. Sure, I would not want to see a desktop PC regularly exceed the mid-seventies, but I would be glad to be able to set different limits for different devices (for instance) or at least raise the warning level globally. I certainly do not want to ignore persistent thermal issues, but not every hot day on a budget laptop is cause for a storm of alert spam.
Please do not feel rushed to respond- I am interested in accuracy of information, not haste. Perhaps I might just make this a call at some point, but let's see if we can't trim some of the fat from this list before I waste anyone's time.
Thanks again! :)