Many times I see some computers/clients that show as "offline" in the health status. Depending on the individual situation, time offline (last time they checcked in or "status change" as the console puts it), I want to find out if the computer is alive and we have a SEP issue, or if the computer is just plain not on the network, or has been removed from production use.
To find the reason for computers showing as "off-line" in the SEPM console, I often end up pinging them - are they on the network? IF SO, then we have a problem!
If I can't ping or otherwise reach them, then it's not necessarily a SEP issue, and pretty much decide I can ignore them.
What I'd like to see in the console - a column we could choose by some means, which would compare -this is the last time the computer checked in with the SEPM mother server, this is the current status as far as SEP talking to mom, and here is the "ping status".
IF there is no green light, and the last checkin or "status change" was a day ago, and yet there is a green "ping" light in that column, then we need to find out what is broken.
I strive for 100% coverage and typically get very close. Of our 370 computers (that total includes about 22 servers) only 1 shows out of date defs and for host integrity, there is a 0 that failed. It's because I watch for computers that are suspiciously missing or show a status that is unexpected. With such a tool built right into the SEPM console, perhaps the SEPM server could simply make note of the ones that show offline (hey, it must somehow know to show the green dot or not!) if it matches the criteria that triggers the avatar that is not the green light, then once an hour it tries to send ICMP (which we can configure in a text file on the SEPM) and shows the results of "T or F" for can ping, can't ping. Since the SEP to mom communications is not a TCP ICMP packet, it could be very telling.
You could compare and say "the computer is technically alive on the network, but the SEP service is not running or is showing off-line status". Your aim, of course, is that if the computer is on the network and can be pinged, then the SEP services should be running. Currently, there's no way to show if the SEP service doesn't communicate whether or not it's because the whole computer is off - or SEP services are broken.