SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features

Let us check about SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features. I have explained the upgrade of SCCM 1810 in the previous post and video.

In this post, you will learn about the SCCM 1810 improvement and new features. I will explain each progress of SCCM 1810 with screenshots of settings so that it will be useful for you to understand.

[Related Post – SCCM 1810 Upgrade #Video Guide & Best Practices, Video SCCM 1810 Improvements and Features, and SCCM 1810 Known Issues and FIXES]

Business Justification of SCCM 1810 Upgrade

SCCM 1810 has more than 20 fixes. SCCM 1810 provides fixes for more than 20 documented issues in the SCCM 1806 version. Microsoft released a KB article to list down all the spots included in the SCCM 1810 version. More details available here.

Patch My PC
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 1

High Availability – SCCM 1810 Improvements

Hierarchy support for SCCM site server high availability. SCCM CAS and child primary servers can have additional passive site servers for high availability.

SCCM Central administration sites and SCCM child primary sites can now have an additional SCCM site server in passive mode.

SCCM 1810 Improvements-HA-Paasive Server for CAS
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 2

SCCM Site System Server on Windows Cluster Node

SCCM primary server can be installed on the Windows role for Failover Clustering. SCCM supports the installation of the primary server on the Windows cluster node.

Windows cluster node role is a prerequisite for SQL availability group, and SQL is always on.

Adaptiva

You can create an SCCM highly available site with fewer servers by using SQL Always-On and a site server in passive mode.

SCCM 1810 Content Management Improvements

SCCM 1810 comes with new boundary group options to give more granular control. More visibility to peer cache supported clients in management insights.

SCCM 1810 Improvements
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 3

Prefer distribution points over peers with the same subnet: If you don’t want to use peer cache for some set of SCCM clients, then you can enable this option.

This DP preference would help clients download the content from DP rather than peer cache clients.

Prefer cloud distribution points over distribution points: When you have a branch office with a faster internet link better than a WAN connection, you can prioritize SCCM Cloud DP rather than using on-prem DP for content download.

Task sequence support for boundary groups – https://docs.microsoft.com/

Notify Resource – New Security Permission Added

Client notification actions are not working for SCCM admins after SCCM 1810 upgrade?

This is because of the new security improvement in SCCM 1810. SCCM Client notification actions now require the Notify Resource permission under the collection section.

SCCM 1810 Improvements-Notify Resource
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 4

Only the full administrator has the permission assigned to Notify Resources. So you may need to create a custom security role with Notify Resource permission to resolve the issue mentioned above.

New Wakeup Device Option from Device Notification Action

SCCM 1810 comes with an improvement in device notification action. Now admin can wake up a device from the SCCM console which is not in the same subnet as the site server.

The SCCM 1810 site server uses another client on the same subnet to send the wake on LAN request. The SCCM client notification channel helps identify another SCCM client that’s awake in the same remote subnet.

SCCM 1810 Improvements-WakeUp Action
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 5

Collection Evaluation Improvements

SCCM 1810 comes with a couple of collection improvements. I can explain only one improvement I tested now in this post. Have you noticed the following option “Schedule a full update on this collection” in collection properties?

In previous versions of SCCM 1806 or prior, you had to change the program to None from the custom schedule window to disable the schedule for query-based collection fully.

The SCCM site disables the schedule when you disable the “Schedule a full update on this collection” setting.

SCCM 1810 Improvements-Collection Eval
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 6

To enable a schedule for collection evaluation, enable the option to Schedule a full update on this collection. 

SCCM Console Administrator Authentication

SCCM console authentication (new tab in hierarchy settings) improvements in the 1810 version. You can now specify the minimum authentication level for administrators to access SCCM sites.

You can also exclude certain users or groups from the SCCM console authentication tab.

Microsoft provides three (3) options to deliver access control to all the sites in your SCCM hierarchy. You can’t have a different authentication method for other child primary servers.

  1. Windows authentication: Require authentication with Active Directory domain credentials.
  2. Certificate authentication: Require authentication with a valid certificate issued by a trusted PKI certificate authority.
  3. Windows Hello for Business authentication: Require authentication with strong two-factor authentication tied to a device and uses biometrics or a PIN.
SCCM 1810 Improvements-Console Authetication
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 7

Management Insights Improvements

I have a post that explains the end-to-end management insight groups and rules of SCCM 1810. I would recommend reading this post to know more about management insight improvements.

The following are the management insight groups available with SCCM 1810 version. Along with this version, SCCM 1810 has an excellent dashboard overview of management insights.

  1. Collection
  2. Applications
  3. Software Center
  4. Security
  5. Simplified Management
  6. macOS and Unix
  7. Cloud Services
  8. Proactive Maintenance
SCCM 1810 Improvements-1Management Insights Dashboard
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 8

SCCM Internet Client Installation Improvements (CMG)

You can install the SCCM clients using Intune and SCCM CMG from the internet.

You can create a “Client app” from Intune portal with the latest SCCM client package and deploy the app to Windows 10 devices that you want to manage from the internet. SCCM 1810 Improvement to Client installation.

I have a post with more details about internet based SCCM client installation using SCCM CMG. With SCCM 1810 onwards, you need to use only two parameters to install the SCCM clients from the internet. 

The following are the two required ccmsetup properties are:

  1. CCMHOSTNAME
  2. SMSSiteCode

More details available in the following Microsoft documentation.

Required App compliance policy for co-managed devices

You have a new option in SCCM 1810. You can define compliance policy rules in SCCM for required applications. This app assessment is part of the overall compliance state sent to Microsoft Intune for co-managed devices.

Navigate to SCCM console – \Assets and Compliance\Overview\Compliance Settings\Compliance Policies

Success: Compliance Policy settings
• Name: Rule Compliance
• Description: NA

The following platform versions are supported:
• All Windows 10 (64-bit)
• All Windows 10 (32-bit)
Success: Rules
All required updates installed with a deadline older than X days: 5

More details – https://docs.microsoft.com/

SCCM 1810 Improvements - Required app compliance policy for co-managed devices
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 9

CMPivot and Scripts -SCCM 1810 Improvements

There are many new entities added to SCCM 1810 CMPivot. I think most of the WMI classes can be queried directly from CMPivot. More details about the CMPivot architecture and troubleshooting.

I have a more detailed and updated post on SCCM Run Script improvements. I would recommend reading the same. Some of the highlights in the CMPivot are available in the following screenshot.

  1. CMPivot gives an option Save Favorite queries.
  2. On the Query Summary tab, select the count of Failed or Offline devices, and then select the option to Create Collection.
SCCM 1810 Improvements - CMPivot & Scripts1
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 10

SCCM 1810 Driver Maintenance Improvements

With SCCM 1810, Microsoft added new metadata fields for Driver Manufacturer and driver Model metadata options. These manufacturers and model details help organize the drivers in a better manner.

Use these fields to tag SCCM driver packages with information to assist in housekeeping or identify old and duplicate drivers that you can delete.

SCCM 1810 Improvements - Driver Manufacturer Driver Model
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 11

Task sequence support of Windows Autopilot for existing devices

With SCCM 1810, you have an option to create a task sequence support for Windows Autopilot’s existing devices.

More Details – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-autopilot/existing-devices#create-an-autopilot-for-existing-devices-task-sequence

SCCM 1810 Improvements-WindowsAutopilot
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 12

Repair Applications & Approve application requests via email

With SCCM 1810, the application approval behavior got improved. The application approval settings appear on the Deployment Settings page of the SCCM 1810 application deployment.

Also, a new application repair option for end-users from the software center was introduced with SCCM 1810 version.

This repair option is also under the application deployment settings page or tab under application deployment. Now you can use SCCM to repair applications!

  • Allow end-users to attempt to repair this application: Enabled
  • Allow clients to use a metered Internet connection to download content: Disabled
SCCM 1810 Improvements - Application Email Approval & AppliCation Repair
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 13

Software Updates Phased Deployments & Maintenance Windows

Phased deployments are enabled for Software updates from SCCM 1810 onwards. The phased deployments are the next level of automation of controlled deployments.

Also, SCCM 1810 improvements come with maintenance windows. SCCM Software Updates group controls the installation behavior of patching in maintenance windows. This behavior can be controlled via clients’ settings.

Enable installation of updates in the “All deployments” maintenance window when the “Software update” maintenance window is available.

When you select YES, then the clients will be able to use other available maintenance windows to install software updates.

SCCM 1810 Improvements - Software Updates Maintenanace Windows
SCCM 1810 – What’s New – Improvements and Features 14

Resource

  1. SCCM 1810 Upgrade #Video Guide & Best Practices
  2. SCCM 1810 Upgrade Step by Step Walkthrough Guide
  3. Why Should I upgrade to 1810? What is New with SCCM 1810 -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/plan-design/changes/whats-new-in-version-1810
  4. Windows 10 Support as SCCM Client – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/plan-design/configs/support-for-windows-10
  5. Windows 10 ADK Support for SCCM 1810? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/core/plan-design/configs/support-for-windows-10#windows-10-adk

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