Upgrade Analytics Breaking Change: Post Migration Update

Several weeks ago, we posted about a breaking change that we would be making in the Upgrade Analytics back end on January 31st, 2017. Today, we successfully switched over our processing to the new pipeline, as planned. We have been and will continue to actively monitor the service throughout the next few days in case issues arise.  Further communications, if necessary, will be made as updates on this blog post.

This change was made to maximize the accuracy and freshness of the data you are presented in Upgrade Analytics, while minimizing the volume of data uploaded from your computers. With this change, the behavior of the deployment script remains the same.  Running the script will kick off an immediate full scan of your computer to gather app and driver inventories as well as general system information.  In the past, any changes to the computer's inventory after the script had run would not be reflected in Upgrade Analytics until the script was run again.  As of the switch, a scheduled task that runs nightly will check to see if there are any updates to the computer's inventory.  If updates exist (for example, an app was installed/uninstalled), this information will be uploaded to Microsoft and reflected in your Upgrade Analytics workspace within 24-48 hours.

Most users will find their workspaces unaffected by this switch. A few users may find that some of the computers previously visible in their Upgrade Analytics workspace are no longer present.  As of the switch, only computers with a compatibility update from October 2016 or later are displayed in Upgrade Analytics.  If any of your machines have been removed from your workspace, you will need to install the latest Compatibility Update KB (KB 2952664 for Windows 7 machines; KB 2976978 for Windows 8.1 machines; or the latest cumulative update for Windows 10 machines) and then re-run the Upgrade Analytics deployment script on those machines.  After running the script, machines should re-appear in your Upgrade Analytics workspace within about 48 hours.

Answers to several common questions can be found on our previous blog post announcing this change.  Of course, if you have any additional questions about the switch or its impact on your workspace, don't hesitate to contact us.

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2017
  "As of the switch, a scheduled task that runs nightly"-- is that a server side process or actually a scan on each client? Does the 12.28.16 deploy script create that local task? Seems like a one-time SCCM advert running RunConfig.bat and we'd be set.
  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2017
    Hey Craig,It's actually the compatibility update KB that creates the scheduled task, and it is created on the client. The task, which runs nightly, is only looking for updates to the app/driver inventory on the machine. The deployment script kicks off a one-time "full" scan of the machine which will gather a comprehensive app/driver inventory. In short, the script gathers the inventory, and the scheduled task keeps it up-to-date!We do still recommend that you run the deployment script on your machines roughly once every 30 days. This will not only ensure accuracy, but it will also indicate that the machine is still active, even if the inventory hasn't changed since the last run of the script.Thanks,Zach