Deployment component improvements

[jprateragg]

After using the Lansweeper deployment component a few times, it's left me a little disappointed. I think there's lots of room for improvement, and here are some of my ideas:

• I know other people have mentioned this already, but I'll repeat it: I'd like to be able to organize packages into folders. This way we can have folders for specific groups of software or scripts.
  
• I'd like to be able to include other packages inside a package.
  
• Deployments should be broken down into jobs. Whenever you deploy a package, it's a new deployment job for that specific package. From there, you can monitor the status of the assets for that job instead of trying to cherry-pick through the log like it is currently.
  
• There needs to be some sort of controls built into a deployment. I should be able to abort a deployment if the need arises.
  
• I'd like to be able to specify when a package gets deployed directly from the "Deploy" window. Currently, the only option is to deploy it immediately. If I want to deploy it at 6pm, I should have that option.
  
• This expands on the bullet above, but the scheduler is confusing. If I want to deploy a package at 6pm the next day, I have to create a specific schedule for it. Schedules and deployments shouldn't be two separate things--you should literally schedule a package to run directly from the deployment without having separate schedules. Having preset schedules is nice, but the way it's implemented now, it's incredibly cumbersome.
  
• I would like the option to be able to redeploy the package on failed computers (this includes actual failures and computers that were offline). And, if deployments were broken down into jobs, it would make it really easy to do this.
  
• This is a stretch, but it would be great if Lansweeper could synchronize the local package share with the package shares at each IP location. So, whenever anything is added/modified/removed from the main package share, those changed files are propagated to the package shares on the other subnets.
  

I encourage you to look at PDQ Deploy--we currently use it for our deployments because it has all of these robust features. But, I'd like to be able to do all of this within a single product instead of having to maintain two separate products.

[polingkyle]

Is 6.0 ever going to release? I think this Beta has been going on for 2 years now.....

[Susan_A]

polingkyle wrote:
Is 6.0 ever going to release? I think this Beta has been going on for 2 years now.....

The 6.0 beta was only released to our beta testers in September of last year. If you haven't already, contact support@lansweeper.com and include "beta" in the title of your message to be added to our beta testers and receive a 6.0 download link. At the moment, we're expecting the production version to become available sometime in April of this year.

[RickS]

Thanks Susan,

I believe we are already enrolled in that program by one of my co-workers. The problem we're faced with is that we are needing to make a change from our current Spiceworks installation due to performance and other concerns/issues. The only thing stopping us from making the move to LS is the lack of a HD tool, hence the keen interested in the 6.0 release.

At this point we are willing to even go over to Beta to get that functionality (we like the rest of the suite) but need to have an idea of time frame.

Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

[Susan_A]

RickS wrote:
At this point we are willing to even go over to Beta to get that functionality (we like the rest of the suite) but need to have an idea of time frame.

We are in the final stages of internal alpha testing, but I cannot give an estimated release date for the beta. As soon as it becomes available, you will be notified via email.

[RickS]

What is the target release date for Lansweeper 6.0?

[Susan_A]

RickS wrote:
What is the target release date for Lansweeper 6.0?

No release date for now. You can contact support@lansweeper.com to be added to our list of beta testers. Beta testers will be notified via email as soon as the 6.0 beta becomes available.

[jprateragg]

RickS wrote:
What is the target release date for Lansweeper 6.0?

"Soon."

[Susan_A]

Most of these feature requests development is already aware of. They're good suggestions and I'm sure development will expand the functionality of the deployment module in a future release, but this will likely have to wait until after the release of Lansweeper 6.0, our help desk update.

[jprateragg]

@AteaYM--Actually, Lansweeper already lets you change the number of simultaneous deployments. It's in Configuration > Server Options > Service Options and look for Deployment Threads at the bottom. Just change the current value to a smaller number.

http://www.lansweeper.com/kb/109/deploying-a-package-manually-or-based-on-a-schedule.html