1 The phased deployment evaluator
SoftwareCentral has a built-in phased deployment evaluator. It runs automatically in the background, in the SoftwareCentral Windows service, so the service must be running for any rollout to move.
| Job | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Run phases | Every 30 minutes | Starts every phase that is ready, retries phases without target resources, and deletes phased deployments that are too old. Shown as Last Run time on the Phased Deployments page. |
| Compliance check | Every 12 hours | Checks the phase that is pending compliance in each phased deployment against its success criteria, and marks it completed or failed. Shown as Last Compliance Check. |
Evaluate all on the Phased Deployments page runs a compliance check and then the phase run straight away. Use it when you do not want to wait — for example to see a pilot phase move on right after its devices have installed.
2 When a phase starts
At each run the evaluator goes through the phases in order. A phase starts only when all of these are true:
| Condition | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The phased deployment’s Start at has passed | No start date means straight away. |
| 2 | Every earlier phase is completed or skipped | A failed phase stops the rollout — unless Always Continue is on. A paused phase always stops it. |
| 3 | The waiting hours after the latest completed phase have passed | Counted from the moment that phase was marked completed. Skipped phases do not start the clock. |
| 4 | Today is the phase’s weekday | Checked in UTC. Any Day always matches. |
| 5 | It is the phase’s hour | The phase can start during that hour (UTC) only. Leave the time empty for any hour. |
| 6 | The phase is approved, if it needs approval | Otherwise it becomes Pending approval and a mail is sent; it starts at a later run once approved. |
| 7 | The phase has devices | See Which devices a phase targets. Without devices it waits (No target resources) or is skipped. |
| 8 | SCCM There are enough licences | Only when the software has a licence rule in the License Module. |
When the Deadline has passed, conditions 2 and 3 no longer apply: every remaining phase is started at the next run, within its weekday, hour and approval.
With the default interval of 30 minutes the evaluator runs at least once in every hour, so a phase with a time of day is not missed. Run Phase in the status window starts a phase at once, but its weekday and hour still apply.
3 Which devices a phase targets
The devices of a phase are worked out when the phase starts, in three steps.
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1 – The phase’s own devices | SCCM all members of the collection, or the hand-picked devices (devices that no longer exist are left out). Intune all members of the group, including members of nested groups. |
| 2 – Patch Flow limits | Only for phased deployments that a Robopack Patch Flow or an Auto Update Plus rule created: limit to program name, limit to install collections / groups and the extra collection or groups you chose. A device is kept when it matches at least one of the limits that are ticked. |
| 3 – Limit to | When the phased deployment has Limit to, only devices (or users) that are also members of that collection or group are kept. |
If nothing is left, the phase gets No target resources and is tried again at every run. If step 2 or 3 removed everyone and When a phase is empty is set to skip, the phase is skipped instead.
4 Completed or failed
At each compliance check the phase that is pending compliance is measured against its success criteria. Only the devices the phase targeted are counted.
| Result | When |
|---|---|
| Completed | The percentage of targeted devices that installed the software successfully, or their number, reaches the success criteria. SCCM uses the installation status of each device; Intune the install status of the application for each device and user. |
| Not enough devices to complete | The criteria is a number of devices that is higher than the number of devices in the phase. |
| Failed | The phase has not met its criteria after the number of days set next to A phase has not met its success criteria after (default 7), or after Phased Deployments max phase runtime (default 30), whichever comes first. |
A failed phase stops the rollout until someone uses Continue to next phase, unless Always Continue is on. You can always move on by hand from the status window.
5 Installation-wide settings
Four settings in the Settings menu apply to every phased deployment.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Phased Deployments - Install Intune as Available (Interface Settings) | Ticked: Intune applications are assigned as available; not ticked: as required. It applies to Intune phased deployments whose Assign as is Use the setting Install Intune As Available. |
| Phased Deployments - Always Continue (Interface Settings) | When ticked, success criteria are not used: the Success Criteria section is hidden, a phase that is pending compliance is marked completed at the next compliance check whatever its result, and a failed phase does not stop the rollout. The phases then simply follow each other on their schedule. |
| Remove Phased Deployments older than (days) (Maintenance) | A phased deployment is deleted when neither it nor any of its phases has changed for this many days (30–1461, default 365), regardless of its state. Old phased deployments must be removed to free up system resources. |
| Phased Deployments max phase runtime (days) (Maintenance) | The maximum number of days SoftwareCentral keeps a phase running before it is marked as failed (1–365, default 30). |
The two Maintenance settings are not shown on installations that only use Intune; the defaults then apply.
6 Security roles
Users only see phased deployments of software their security role is allowed to see.
What they may do is limited by the role as well. Creating, editing and deleting phased deployments, creating and managing templates, viewing the status, running the evaluator (Evaluate all), and each action in the status window — approving, skipping, retrying, continuing to the next phase and running a phase — are separate permissions. A common set-up is to let the people who approve production phases approve, but not create or delete.
7 Best practice
- Keep the SoftwareCentral Windows service running. The evaluator runs inside it, so no rollout moves while the service is stopped.
- Leave the intervals at their defaults unless you have a reason to change them. A run interval below 5 minutes is replaced by 30 minutes, and a compliance check interval below 1 hour is replaced by 12 hours.
- Use Always Continue only when rollouts must not wait for results. While it is on, success criteria are not used and a failed phase does not stop the rollout.
- Keep old phased deployments removed. The service writes a warning to the log when a run takes too long, and recommends removing some phased deployments.
8 Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| “Waiting to start” stays for hours, and Last Run time is old. | The SoftwareCentral Windows service is not running, so the evaluator does not run. | Start the SoftwareCentral Windows service. The times update at the next run. |
| Status: “Pending previous phase” on a later phase. | An earlier phase is not yet completed or skipped. | Look at the earlier phase in the status window. It is the one that holds the rollout. |
| Status: “Waiting until” a date and time. | The waiting hours after the previous phase, or the start date, have not passed yet. | Nothing to do. The phase starts at the first run after that time. |
| Status: “Awaiting compliance for phase x of y” for longer than expected. | The compliance check runs every 12 hours by default, and a phase is only seen as completed at a check. | Click Evaluate all on the Phased Deployments page to check now. |
| A phase is marked failed after some days. | The success criteria was not met within the number of days set for the phase. When that number is not set, 7 days is used. | In the status window, click Retry or Continue to next phase. |