In the world of Managed Service Providers (MSPs), efficiency is king. One of the biggest operational headaches is managing system reboots across multiple client environments without disrupting productivity. That’s where our latest project steps in—a ConnectWise Automate plugin designed to simplify reboot management while automating scheduling, enforcing dependencies, and reducing unnecessary downtime.
Development Progress
Our plugin is nearing a fully functional beta release, with foundational components already built:
Primary Goals
- Dynamic reboot scheduling that automatically calculates reboot times based on policy enforcement rules.
- Drag-and-drop UI for grouped computer ordering, allowing MSPs to reorder reboot sequences effortlessly.
- Dependency-based logic that ensures systems reboot only when necessary conditions are met.
- Automated failover handling that detects failed reboots and intelligently reschedules them.
- Multi-tenant support, allowing seamless operation across different locations and client environments.
Only Clients, Locations, and Computers can receive a reboot policy. Each policy can apply to multiple clients, locations, and agents combined. The policy defines a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, along with a time of day to create an available reboot window for computers flagged as pending reboot. During the policy windows the computer will be rebooted by automation.
The plugin allows you to assign a reboot policy to a client, a location, or directly to computers but you can also create reboot groups, which consist of computers that depend on other systems. Reboot groups enable bundling computers together so that all members reboot in sequence based on group assignment.
Within a reboot group, members are assigned a specific order of reboot requirement. You can configure a delay between reboot requests to group members. Members can be designated as soft or hard dependent:
- A hard-dependent member requires all group members to reboot in sequence when that member is flagged for reboot.
- A soft-dependent member reboots if a hard-dependent member initiates a reboot but will only reboot itself if it has a pending reboot flagged independently.
Secondary Goal: Expanding Reboot Policies
We plan to expand policies to support scheduled reboots for clients, locations, and computers, enabling a timeframe-based reboot system. This feature allows computers to be rebooted after an extended period without requiring a flagged reboot.
The policy can be structured for:
- Weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual reboot triggers.
Additionally, the plugin will track offline computers, determining when they go offline and come back online, along with offline duration records.
All reboot actions will be logged and made available for review within the plugin.
We Want Your Feedback!
We would like to hear from you! Share your thoughts and any features you’d like to see in a reboot management plugin.
Beta releases will be announced soon!