Topic Last Updated—August 2008

Configuration Manager 2007 clients download configuration baseline assignments with their machine policy, and the actual configuration baseline, with associated dependent configuration baselines and configuration items, is then downloaded within the next two hours. However, the configuration baselines will not be evaluated until their scheduled compliance evaluation time or unless you manually initiate evaluation on the client. Clients that have not yet evaluated their compliance with assigned configuration baselines will report their compliance as Unknown.

Note
If you need to manually initiate evaluation outside the defined compliance evaluation schedule, on Configuration Manager in the Control Panel, click the Configurations tab, select the configuration baselines, and then click Evaluate.

The client ensures that it has the correct version of the configuration data referenced in the configuration baseline assignments before it begins its evaluation. If necessary, the client downloads the configuration data from the site's default management point.

The evaluation schedule initiates a compliance evaluation that starts randomly within the next two hours. This random initiation ensures that the management point is not saturated with compliance results from multiple clients at the same time. The actual evaluation time is displayed on the client Configurations tab and in desired configuration management reports.

The compliance results are sent to the client's assigned management point in state messages and status messages. For more information, see Compliance Sent As State Messages and Status Messages in Desired Configuration Management.

Important
The client's compliance evaluation results are cached locally, for 15 minutes. Unless the client has received notification from its configuration baseline assignment that configuration data has been modified since its last evaluation, the client will not re-evaluate its compliance within this 15 minute window, even if you specify a shorter evaluation compliance schedule or click Evaluate in the Configurations tab.

There is a compliance evaluation schedule associated with each configuration baseline, and clients evaluate compliance with each configuration baseline according to the related schedule. If the computer is not currently connected to the network but the client has downloaded all the configuration data referenced in the assigned configuration baselines, the client performs offline evaluation. When the computer is next connected to the network, the cached compliance information is sent to its management point.

There is a default compliance evaluation schedule of one week configured for the site, which you can modify with your preferred default evaluation schedule. This value is then displayed when you assign a configuration baseline. However, you can override this default value during the assignment process so that if necessary, each assigned configuration baseline has an independent compliance evaluation schedule. For example, you might want to increase the frequency of how often you evaluate for compliance with selected configuration baselines because they monitor configurations that are more likely to change, or because they are high-priority configurations.

As with other schedules within Configuration Manager, the compliance evaluation schedules can be configured as a simple schedule (such as every 6 hours) or a custom schedule (such as every Sunday at 2 a.m.). By default, the time specified is evaluated in the client's local time. To change this to coordinated universal time (UTC), specify a custom schedule for the configuration baseline assignment and then select the UTC option.

See Also