Choosing Which Third Party Patches to Apply

By default, third party software patches are set to Not Approved. To apply a patch to devices, you must set the patch’s status to Approved.
You can approve third party patches two ways:

• Manually—Select the software patches to approve and change their status individually.
• Automatically—Create rules that automatically change the approval status of software updates with certain criteria to Approved, for an approval group.

Once an update is approved, it will be deployed to the applicable approval groups according to the settings in the applied Advanced Software Management policy. The approval group controls which devices the patch is applied to, and the policy controls when the patch is applied.

When to use Manual and Automatic Third Party Software Patch Approval

Approving updates automatically is best for standard, low risk devices and patches. Automating patch approval saves you time and ensures devices are up to date with the latest security patches and new features.

Use manual software approval for higher risk devices and updates. Using approval groups reduces the amount of time it takes to approve and deploy patches, so manually approving patches is not time-intensive.

For more information, see one of the following, below:

• Approving Third Party Software Updates Manually
• Automatically Approving Third Party Software Patches for an Approval Group

Approving Third Party Software Updates Manually

With manual software patch approval, you can use filters to find the software patches with the criteria that you want to approve, and then change their status to Approved.

You can focus the list on the updates you are most interested in, using advanced filtering to show only the vendor, product, or severity you want.  You can also filter by release date and patch statuses, search titles, and select approval status, approval group, and operating system patch type.

You can also combine the selections in this filter to narrow down which software patches you want to see. For example, if you want to only show patches from Adobe, for Adobe Flash, with the status of failed, you can choose these options from their boxes and click Apply.

To approve third party software patches manually

1. In Service Center, click Advanced Software Management > Manual Software Approval.
2. If Advanced Filtering is not displayed, click the Advanced Filtering button.
3. In the Advanced Filtering section, select any of the following options:
   • Vendor—The name of the software manufacturer.
   • Product—The name of the software application.
   • Severity—The severity of the software patch.
   • Release Date—The date the software patch was released.
   • Bulletin ID/Title Contains—Any part of the software patch title.
   • Status—The status of the software patch in Barracuda RMM: Needed, Failed, or Installed.
   • Approval—The approval status of the patch.
   • Approval Group—The approval group you want to see patches for.

4. Select one or more operating system patch types:

   • Windows App

   • Mac App

5. Click Apply.
6. Select the check boxes of the patches you want to approve.
7. Click Change Approvals.
8. In the Approval box, select Install.
9. Click OK.

Declining Third Party Software Patches Manually

When you decline a patch, the patch will not be installed, and it no longer appears in the list of updates.

Declining a patch that has already been installed doesn't uninstall it.

To decline third party software patches manually

1. In Service Center, click Advanced Software Management > Manual Software Approval.
2. If Advanced Filtering is not displayed, click the Advanced Filtering button.
3. In the Advanced Filtering section, select any of the following options:
   • Vendor—The name of the software manufacturer.
   • Product—The name of the software application.
   • Severity—The severity of the software patch.
   • Release Date—The date the software patch was released.
   • Bulletin ID/Title Contains—Any part of the software patch title.
   • Status—The status of the software patch in Barracuda RMM: Needed, Failed, or Installed.
   • Approval—The approval status of the patch.
   • Approval Group—The approval group you want to see patches for.
4. Click Apply.
5. Select the check boxes of the patches you want to approve.
6. Click Change Approvals.
7. In the Approval box, select Declined.
8. Click OK.

Changing the Status of a Third Party Software Patches to Not Approved Manually

When you change the status of a third party software patch, the patch will not be installed.

You may want to change the status of a patch to Declined if you have approved the patch for install, and it has not been installed yet, but you no longer want to install it.

To change the status of a third party patch to not approved manually

1. In Service Center, click Advanced Software Management > Manual Software Approval.
2. If Advanced Filtering is not displayed, click the Advanced Filtering button.
3. In the Advanced Filtering section, select any of the following options:
   • Vendor—The name of the software manufacturer.
   • Product—The name of the software application.
   • Severity—The severity of the software patch.
   • Release Date—The date the software patch was released.
   • Bulletin ID/Title Contains—Any part of the software patch title.
   • Status—The status of the software patch in Barracuda RMM: Needed, Failed, or Installed.
   • Approval—The approval status of the patch.
   • Approval Group—The approval group you want to see patches for.
4. Click Apply.
5. Select the check boxes of the patches you want to approve.
6. Click Change Approvals.
7. In the Approval box, select Not Approved.
8. Click OK.