Group Policy Management

Overview

For IT administrators, it can be important to have readily available insights into the time taken for Group Policied to be applied at the user and device levels. This library pack provides you with such insights. This information is retrieved from the windows event log by a Remote Action.

Problem

Information pertaining to the time taken for user and computer group policies to be applied can be relevant when trying to investigate GPO-related issues. This information is not readily available in one location. As a result, it can be tedious to find such information.

Solution

• Use the Get Gpo Startup Impact Remote Action to attain the following information:

  • The amount of time taken for computer policy GPOs to be applied

  • The amount of time taken for User policy GPOs to be applied

  • The amount of time taken for the domain controller to be discovered

  • The DNS name and IP of the domain controller used at logon to retrieve policies

Contents

Remote Actions

• Get Gpo Startup Impact

  • This RA retrieves information pertaining to the time taken for GPOs to be applied and from which domain controller at logon and device startup.

  • Note: it is recommended to run this RA at least once per week

• Request VPN Connection for Compliance

  • This RA checks to see when last were GPOs applied on the target device(s). It also launches a campaign to notify the user and schedule a GPO update within 5 minutes.

• Update Group Policy Settings

  • This RA runs ‘gpupdate’ on target devices to force the application of GPOs.

Campaigns

• A campaign called “Request VPN Connection for Compliance“ is included in this library pack. This RA is used to notify that they need to connect to the corporate VPN so that their devices can receive GPO updates.

Investigations

• Group Policy Management - User GPO processing duration

  • When run, this investigation returns a list of devices and the time taken for user GPOs to be applied

• Group Policy Management - All Windows computers

  • When run, this GPO returns a list of all Windows devices.

• Group Policy Management - Computer GPO processing duration

  • When run, this investigation returns a list of devices and the time taken for computer GPOs to be applied

• The User/Computer GPO processing duration investigations can be run from the portal by clicking on their respective hyperlinks: