Patch Tuesday Cloud

[doone128]

Just enabled the cloud sync for the first time to try and take advantage of any new stuff that appears. I thought the Patch Tuesday report would be a good starting place to look as I would no longer have to import the report. 

However, I'm finding it useless compared to the on-prem version. The on-prem version marks patched items as green and non-patched items red and, up until the recent report, had a REALLY useful 'Patch Status' column. This isn't available in the new on-prem report (why???) and certainly isn't available in the cloud version; and neither is any of the useful colouring items.

Is anybody else using the cloud Patch Tuesday report or is everyone just defaulting to the on-prem version?

[Esben_D]

Quick FYI, the cloud variant of the report only shows out-of-date devices. Therefore a "patch status" column would be pointless (since they would all be out-of-date). The on-prem version has it again now (i accidentally removed it while fixing things 😞 )

Some of the deciding factors to do it that way were:

1. there is no coloring as you indicated
2. there is no column specific filtering, so it makes the report much harder to use if every asset is included

If there is enough demand from people that would like to see both out-of-date and up-to-date devices in a single report, I could look into adding that. We are also looking at how we can improve reporting functionality in cloud. You'll see more of that in our next launch event.

[doone128]

Ugh - ok. Didn't realise that. I think I'll stick with the on-prem version as it's far more useful. You don't seem to be able to easily filter on any of the columns in the cloud version and it still shows OS's that are no longer in support so don't get the Tuesday patch (Win 7 etc). The on-prem version does this also, but I can filter them out. Thanks for the reply.

[Jacob_H]

Hey Doone!  Congrats on linking to the cloud by the way!  Check out the risk insights, that's my all-time favorite part. 

I'm not official support, and the Famous Esben is on holiday - but the patch status is in the on-prem report currently - maybe hit up the page and re-copy it.  (reference https://www.lansweeper.com/resources/report/patch-tuesday/microsoft-august-2024-patch-tuesday-audit/)

Regarding the report differences -   Lansweeper Sites (a.k.a. cloud) reporting has it's share of advantages and limitations...  the LS Sites reports and custom views are easier to build versus knowing SQL, however it is more limited in functionality/logic at this current point in time.  

To answer your last question -  personally as a sysadmin, I use on-prem more to create more custom/granular reporting that requires computation/ranking/etc for my teams to use.  I use LS Sites reporting and views for other general IT audiences to use as it is easier to build simpler reports, and when I want to lock down what folks can and can't see.  So, yeah I use the on-prem patch tuesday report because I end up making five or so modified/custom reports from it 🙂

[doone128]

Thanks Jacob. Based on Esben's reply, I think I'll just stick with on-prem. I'm not overly in love with the cloud version if I'm honest. Everything seems to be more clicks away to get to the information I want and, apart from the insight into potential vulnerabilities, I can't see much benefit in using it. It's also using that modern 'everything must be bland and one colour' design which I find more difficult to look at than something with a bit of colour.