When employees are the first to identify endpoint problems, IT teams begin troubleshooting after productivity has already been affected. Many common issues can be detected and addressed earlier through continuous endpoint visibility and automation.
All too often, IT teams lack proactive support and only learn about endpoint issues after they disrupt employees. This leads to increased downtime, creates repetitive support work for agents, and leaves security or configuration issues unresolved for longer than they should be.
However, with autonomous endpoint management, IT teams can continuously identify endpoint issues, trigger responses, and verify that issues are resolved. With that in mind, let’s explore how proactive workflows work, how to implement them, and how autonomous endpoint management can address issues in advance.
What Does It Mean to Fix Endpoint Issues Proactively?
Proactive endpoint management is the act of identifying and addressing endpoint issues before they cause problems for users. This requires a combination of continuous visibility, automated alerts, scripting, patching, and automated remediation to achieve the speed and efficiency needed for proactive management.
However, automation does not mean removing the human element altogether. Autonomy should still include IT oversight, wherein teams define conditions, approved actions, safeguards, and escalation paths.
The most important element of proactive endpoint management is its ability to identify and address issues before users report them. If IT teams can stop problems before users report symptoms, it saves time and improves efficiency across the organization.
How Autonomous Endpoint Management Prevents User-Reported Issues
So, how does autonomous endpoint management work? There’s a simple but important workflow that helps endpoint management software identify and address issues before users need to report them:
Continuously Monitor Endpoint Conditions: First, the endpoint management software collects data on device health, software, patches, services, configurations, and security status. This continuous visibility is essential for identifying symptoms well in advance, rather than relying on occasional inventory checks.
Detect Meaningful Changes or Threshold Breaches: As the software monitors endpoints, it identifies conditions such as low storage, stopped services, missing patches, outdated applications, or configuration drift. These conditions may require action, so IT teams can use severity, endpoint exposure, business impact, and company policy to determine which issues should be addressed first.
Prioritize Issues by Risk and User Impact: Prioritization is also essential for identifying and addressing the most critical issues first. It’s important to set rules for evaluating whether conditions could affect security, availability, performance, or productivity, and to prioritize the issues that are widespread, most critical, or likely to cause the greatest disruptions.
Trigger an Approved Remediation: Once an issue is identified and prioritized, the endpoint management software should be able to address it with pre-approved remediation actions. This can include running scripts, installing updates, restarting services, enforcing policies, or other predefined actions, although depending on the risk, it can also require technician approval or run automatically.
Verify That the Issue Was Resolved: Once an issue is addressed, it’s also important to verify it was properly resolved. The workflow should verify the result whenever the endpoint condition can be checked again, such as confirming that a patch was installed successfully, a service was restarted, or a device was returned to the required configuration. Failed actions should be recorded for technician review.
Escalate Exceptions for Technician Review: If automation fails to resolve the issue or it becomes a recurring problem requiring more thorough investigation, the endpoint management solution should be able to escalate it to IT teams. This way, human agents can still step in to handle more complex issues, rather than letting the issues go unresolved. This may require remote support and troubleshooting to access the affected device directly and resolve the issue with minimal user disruption.
Endpoint Issues IT Teams Can Address Before Users Submit Tickets
The next question is: what specific issues can autonomous endpoint management identify and address in advance? There are several common problems that can be spotted and remediated automatically before users need to report them, including:
1. Low Disk Space
Devices have only so much storage space, and endpoint management software can detect when devices are nearing capacity. From there, they can perform approved cleanup actions, such as removing temporary files or escalating devices with recurring problems.
This prevents disks from reaching their storage capacity, leading to fewer application failures or update problems, and keeps devices running efficiently.
2. Stopped or Unhealthy Services
If a service stops running, automation software can detect it immediately. From there, it can try restarting the service automatically and check whether it’s still operational, or escalate the issue to an IT agent if the restart doesn’t resolve it (rather than constantly restarting it).
3. Missing Operating System and Application Updates
Outdated software can lead to many issues, including exposing vulnerabilities, missing performance updates, and compatibility issues. Patch automation can address this by deploying approved operating system and third-party application updates without requiring manual updates on each device, saving time and improving security.
This includes verification to ensure updates are properly installed and reports to note failed installations or exceptions.
4. Configuration Drift
The more endpoints are used, the more likely their settings are to drift away from the company’s policies and requirements over time. Autonomous endpoint management can identify when configurations move away from the required state and help IT teams reapply controls for settings such as firewalls, screen locks, and password requirements.
This supports consistent policy enforcement while maintaining records of corrective actions for audits and compliance reviews.
5. Repetitive Application or Performance Problems
If there are recurring issues, such as common errors, excessive resource use, or failing applications, endpoint management software can identify them and use predefined scripts or background tools to investigate and correct them. Keep in mind that this works for known issues, but complex or unfamiliar problems will still require a technician to investigate and address.
How to Decide Which Endpoint Issues to Automate
Automation is a powerful tool for addressing basic and recurring issues, but it can be difficult to identify which issues qualify. When you’re implementing endpoint management and automation, you can start automating issues that meet certain criteria, including:
Frequently recurring issues that consistently create support work.
Issues that can be reliably detected, such as those with a clear condition or threshold.
Issues that can be resolved through a consistent, repeatable action
Remediation actions that are low risk when performed without direct supervision.
Fixes that are easy to verify after remediation.
Actions that are reversible or safely escalated if they fail.
Issues that cause measurable user disruption or ticket volume.
Start with a narrow selection of well-understood use cases that can be easily resolved by following repeatable guidance. From there, you can begin expanding to more complex workflows, although there will always be a level of complexity at which IT agents will want to handle the issue directly.
How to Build Safe Automated Remediation Workflows
Once you’ve identified which issues can be addressed with automated remediation, the next step is to build automation workflows. These establish the steps the endpoint management solution will take to ensure issues are properly and consistently addressed.
You can build automated remediation workflows in a few steps:
1. Define the Exact Trigger
Start by specifying the endpoint condition that triggers the workflow, such as a specific error, warning signs that indicate potential issues, or alerts. Be specific and avoid broad thresholds, as they can lead to false alarms or unnecessary actions.
2. Limit the Scope of the Action
Make sure the remediation is limited to only where it’s relevant, such as specific groups, devices, or operating systems. Setting policies that limit this scope can help prevent actions from running across unintended devices and making changes where it’s not necessary.
3. Test Before Broad Deployment
Testing is vital to ensure the automation runs as intended. Start with a limited device group to run the automated remediation on and ensure everything works properly, including scripts, patches, and policy changes. From there, if everything works as intended, you can expand to larger device groups. If an action could impact business applications or devices, a phased rollout is important for testing and identifying errors before they become widespread.
4. Set Approval and Escalation Rules
Not all actions should be automated. Make sure you separate low-risk actions that can be easily automated from larger ones that require technician approval, so the endpoint management solution doesn’t make sweeping changes without approval. It’s also important to set escalation rules that define what should happen if remediation fails or the condition recurs, so the automation tool doesn’t get stuck in a loop as issues keep recurring.
5. Record and Review Every Outcome
While automation is great for carrying out repeatable remediation tasks, you’ll still want to be able to verify it did the job properly. IT teams should have visibility into every action and outcome, including when it ran, which endpoints were affected, and whether or not it succeeded. Not only is this information important for verifying IT compliance during audits, but it can also be used to refine thresholds and identify the root causes of recurring issues.
How Proactive Patching Helps Prevent Endpoint Problems
Most endpoint incidents are avoidable with the proper preparation. They often begin with missing OS updates, outdated software, or failed deployments, so if these issues are identified early enough, they can be addressed before they become problems.
With real-time visibility and policy-based patching, IT teams can quickly identify and update outdated endpoints, reducing the time they spend vulnerable and improving both security and performance. Keep in mind that any automated patch management process should include validation and follow-ups, rather than assuming the job is done once deployment begins.
A good patch management solution should:
Identify missing updates, including both operating systems and third-party applications.
Prioritize updates by company policy, severity, and endpoint exposure.
Deploy approved patches to selected device groups.
Use phased rollouts to test updates and reduce operational risk, scheduling them at convenient times.
Track installation successes and failures.
Remediate or escalate devices that remain unpatched
When IT Technicians Still Need to Intervene
Automation should not replace IT teams. Rather, it should assist and augment them, freeing time from repetitive manual tasks so they can focus on more critical issues. In fact, even with automation, there are many times when technician review remains necessary.
IT technicians will need to step in when:
A problem’s cause cannot be identified as any known condition.
An automated action repeatedly fails.
The issue affects a business-critical or specialized application that requires careful handling.
Remediation could interrupt work or risk data loss.
Multiple endpoint issues point to a larger problem with the infrastructure.
The device requires hands-on remote troubleshooting.
A user needs help with an issue that can’t be resolved through background actions.
How to Measure Whether Proactive Endpoint Management Is Working
Of course, when you invest in an autonomous endpoint management solution, you’ll want to make sure it’s working. Fortunately, there are a few key metrics you can track to show whether proactive endpoint management is working properly or if the automation rules need to be adjusted.
You’ll know your endpoint management solution is working if:
Recurring support tickets decrease for certain issues.
A higher percentage of detected issues are resolved automatically.
Remediation success rates go up, while failure rates decrease.
The time from detection to resolution decreases.
The number of issues escalated for technician review decreases.
Patch and configuration compliance rates improve.
Repeat incidents after remediation decrease.
The rate of user-impacting incidents that are prevented or reduced improves.
These measurements will indicate if workflows are resolving meaningful problems, rather than simply generating more alerts or automated activity without addressing any real issues.
How Splashtop AEM Helps IT Teams Resolve Issues Proactively
Splashtop AEM helps IT teams put proactive endpoint management workflows into practice by combining endpoint visibility, patch management, alerts, scripting, automation, and remote troubleshooting in one platform.
Splashtop AEM provides centralized endpoint visibility, automated patch management, proactive alerts, CVE insights, and remediation tools that help IT teams keep devices secure and operating reliably.
With Splashtop AEM, you can:
1. Maintain Continuous Endpoint Visibility
Splashtop AEM provides visibility into all your endpoints, including health, software, hardware, patch status, configuration, and known vulnerabilities. This helps ensure that IT teams can clearly see, manage, and support all the devices they manage from a single place, improving their ability to detect and prioritize issues quickly.
2. Create Proactive Alerts and Automated Remediation
With Splashtop AEM, IT teams can set alerts for issues or endpoint conditions and pair them with approved remediation actions to quickly address them. This can include running scripts, restarting services, or even alerting technicians, so any issue can be handled as efficiently as possible.
3. Automate Operating System and Third-Party Patching
Keeping devices and software properly patched is essential for both security and efficiency, and Splashtop AEM’s patch automation helps IT teams keep managed endpoints up to date and identify devices where updates failed or remain outstanding. Splashtop AEM can identify missing updates, schedule them, and deploy them across endpoints while adhering to company patch prioritization and testing policies.
4. Run Scripts and Background Actions
The best kind of technical support is so efficient that end users don’t even realize they needed it. Splashtop AEM’s scripts and background actions help IT teams investigate devices and remediate many issues with minimal disruption to users. This includes executing scripts, managing services, reviewing processes, and performing repeatable tasks across multiple endpoints, thereby improving efficiency company-wide.
5. Remotely Resolve Complex Exceptions
When automation isn’t enough for addressing an issue, IT agents can seamlessly launch remote support sessions to troubleshoot and manage devices. No matter where the IT team is working or where the remote devices are located, Splashtop’s remote support tools provide visibility, remediation, and troubleshooting to keep every device running smoothly.
Build a Proactive Endpoint Management Workflow With Splashtop AEM
Many recurring issues can be identified and prevented well in advance. However, this requires continuous visibility, meaningful detection rules, automation, verification, and the ability to escalate to technicians if needed.
With Splashtop AEM, IT teams can gain the visibility, automation, and control they need to detect issues quickly and resolve them before they become major problems. This helps improve efficiency and productivity for IT agents and end users alike, while keeping cybersecurity strong and devices up to date.
Ready to detect endpoint issues earlier and automate routine remediation? Get started with a free trial of Splashtop AEM today.
