SOLVED: How to Set Timing of ‘Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle’

If you have ever worked with System Center Configuration Manager to manage PC’s, you will know that changes do not take place quickly, and that can be frustrating.  To have your PC’s take instruction from SCCM immediately, you need to manually kick off the ‘cycle’:

1. Install the SCCM agent
2. Go to the PC in question and bring up CONFIG MANAGER PROPERTIES > ACTIONS
3. Manually start the ‘Machine Policy Retrieval & Evaluation Cycle’

But this leads to the question of, ” how often does the Machine Policy Retrieval and Evaluation Cycle run?” and the good people at Microsoft Partner support answered this question quickly:

…a Configuration Manager client can also download its client policy on a schedule. By default, this value is configured to every 60 minutes and is configured with the option Policy polling interval (minutes). You can change the schedule time from Client Settings> Client Policy> Client policy polling interval:

More information: How to Initiate Policy Retrieval for a Configuration Manager Client
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb633207.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

If you want to read the full MS Partner Support thread (assuming you are an MS Partner), click HERE.