Contents
Introduction
Anakage Proactive CoBot component is a lightweight application which is installed on end points to resolve end-point issues proactively with no user intervention.
Proactive cobot is implemented as a service that detects and silently remediates issues at end points. Beyond maintaining standard system settings & services in running condition, performance tunings and end point non compliance detect and auto resolution it also enables on screen employee communication followed by user action enforcement tasks like password resets, mandatory trainings, compliance notices, “In-moment” surveys etc.
To ensure a seamless and superior device performance and user experience, proactive cobot allows both agent (installed service) and admin (service desk engineer) to trigger solutions upon requirement.
Architecture
Various Use Cases
Proactive cobot has versatile usability across the End User Support tasks including belo
Automated Self-Heal Resolution-
Proactive cobot conducts 24X7 oversight of end point status and, if required, remediates issues silently without any user intervention.
Proactive solution examples of silent detect and fix include categories-
Printer
- ensure printer spooler services are running
- default printer configuration
Browser related issues
- Allow or restrict Active X
- Allow multiple file download
- Getting Error- Stop running this script
- Recommended popup blocker and proxy settings
System performance issues
- system temperature checking
- Failed GP update
- System Auto Reboot
- System slow due to paging size and indexing file size
- Clean-up
- Disc failure
- Removing non-standard/ unapproved add ins
- Manage start up programs
Other Application issues
- Unable to move or drag cells to copy content in Excel
- Unable to copy from one cell to multiple cells in Excel
- Enable inactive add-ins in Microsoft Office Applications
- Not getting new mail notification in outlook
- Outlook is closed when minimized
- Unable to open Adobe PDF
- Unable to open hyperlink in word
- Error while launching excel
End Point Compliance-
proactive cobot can check end points against different end point compliance parameters of multiple products (installed agents) that may make devices non-compliant.
Examples include:
- antivirus version check and update
- hard drive encryption method and conversion status check
- standard versions, settings and services at end points
Click here to read more about compliance remediation and automation.
On Screen User Communication–
Flash notices, alerts, surveys or user feedback mechanisms using proactive agent create a cooperative environment with the users besides Process compliance by coaxing and if need be even forcing the users to act.
Examples include:
- Password reset Self-service portal registration enforcement
- Mandatory training
- In-moment surveys
- Corporate videos / communications
- Compliance messages
- Contractor extensions
Remotely Solution Firing-
Proactive cobot allows admin to fire solution to different end points without any remote access where particular solution has failed to run or Offline CoBotic solutions requiring user intervention. This is a great hack to overcome the issue of non user adoption of Self-Service as Service Desk engineers can fire self-service solutions on employee’s machines and employees can self-resolve with the In-App guidance feature inside any application.
Scenarios include:
- Custom shared network printer configurations
- Application usability related issues
- Mail archival
- Shared drive mapping
- Shared Mail box mapping
- Process guidance like workflow approvals
- Guide users on how to read digitally signed emails when they can’t
- Custom Add ins / settings related issues
- Pst errors
Track Multiple End point Information-
Proactive cobot allows admin to collect multiple end points information at one place to take proactive actions.
Such end point information for Root Cause Analysis and/or proactive actions can include:
- System temperature
- Disk scan errors
- Error logs
Password expiry detection and reset enforcement-
Most of the organizations have password reset portal for users to reset password by themselves without having to log tickets, but the portal is scantly used due to lack of user adoption. Most users do not even register in the Password reset self-service portal to begin with even when it can make life so easy for them when they get locked out of system
Proactive cobot can check password expiry details and accordingly prompt and enforce users to reset password by redirecting them to the existing password reset portal which a subtle AD prompt can not
Deployment mode
Anakage Proactive cobot is an agent based exe installed at the end points. Installation can be done by one time push through SCCM or other software distribution platforms. And it has updater functionality in built, so there’s no need to push every time the proactive agent agets an update.
Components of Proactive CoBot (Self Heal Agent)
Collector and Actor
The collector can capture required relevant information from end points and advice the Actor to act based on the trigger values. What’s interesting is it syncs silently whenever the machine is online with server to synch up updates, new rules and remediation solutions.
- End point information Collect and Act solutions–
Helps to both remediate issues and collect the activity data.
Solution examples-
- Temp file cleanup
- Missing KB article patch updation
More solutions can be-
| · Reset Print Spooler ……………………………. | Deletes all print jobs of the computer and restarts the Print Spooler service |
| · Install Software ……………………………………. | Installs applications using Microsoft Software Installer. |
| · Disable Start-up Application ………………. | Remove High-impact application from start-up. |
| · Test Computer Group Policy Applied in Days Range ………………………… | Compares last time computer group policy was applied on target device against provided time range. |
- End point information collect solutions-
Helps to collect end point information with zero action. It is helpful to detect and quantify anomalies and further root cause analysis can be done by the engineers.
Solution examples-
- System temperature
- installed system program list
More solutions can be-
| · Get Start-up Impact…………………………. | Retrieves information similar to the information in the Start-up tab in Windows Task Manager. |
| · Get Battery Status…………………………… | Returns the health status of at most 2 batteries installed on the laptop, in terms of capacity that it can still hold. |
| · Get GPO Start-up Impact………………… | Obtains from Windows Event Log a wide range of information about user/machine GPOs applied during user logon/device start-up. |
| · Get Outlook Plugin Crash Details…… | Retrieves details of Microsoft Outlook plugin crashes, with the focus on the most recent |
Reporting and Admin portal
It processes all the activities stored by the collector and then feed to the Anakage Universal portal where it is interpreted at pre-defined regular time intervals. The activities are stored in following views:
Summary
It shows the solution list with pass and fail end point details.
Admin Tasks
- Detecting passed/failed solution
Allows admin to define detection and remediation rules and settings at which the solutions need to be run on endpoints.
First the proactive agent will find whether a particular solution is obeying predefined rules set on specific settings at the end point. If the agent itself fixes the issue, it will fall under ’pass’, and if the agent doesn’t, it will fall under ‘fail’.
- Fixing failed solution–
Failed entries denote issues that need remediation. Solutions fixation can be triggered from Admin portal itself to invoke remediation for specific end points where the remediation has failed. Also custom end points can to be selected instead of default Solution run on all failed end points.
If the fix option is clicked, this screen will come up allowing admin to select end point and action type.
After clicking the fix button, the details will be shown under Action History.
Solution Details
Solution details shows all the solutions run in the selected date range with username,hostname and runtime details.
Action History
Action history shows all the action events taken by the proactive cobot. The action can be either agent initiated (silent) or admin initiated from the portal which is mentioned in the ‘action type’.
As proactive solution fixation can be both agent and admin initiated, the solution fixation types are mentioned in ‘Remediation mode’. ‘Admin initiated’ refers if admin manually initiates any fix action against any solution. ‘Agent initiated’ refers if the agent based actor and collector responds, collects and reports.
The ‘message’ option works as a cobot event placeholder and it shows the actions taken by the cobot. Like if any solution fails, the failure solution will be shown here
Version Management
On the portal the exe version details of active agents for different end points can be obtained.
And it can be updated either by pulling the updater script or entire exe.
