Roaming Client HowTo: Delete All Clients Older Than a Desired Date

Introduction

This article discusses managing your registered roaming client entries for computers which are no longer active in your organization. To remove these clients, a two-step process is required because deleting clients by the last sync time filter is currently disabled due to a known issue. Deleting by last sync filter is still possible with the following two steps. 

Deleting roaming clients from the Umbrella dashboard is a great way to clean up old clients. Deleting a client from the dashboard will not uninstall the client. Deleting an active client will cause the client to automatically re-register at next start and re-appear safely on the dashboard. Note, policies attributed to roaming computers will need to be re-applied after re-registration.

Step 1: Tag

 
The first step in bulk deleting roaming clients by last sync filter is to log into the dashboard and open the Deployments -> Roaming Computers page. This step requires the latest roaming client management page, rolling out between April-May 2019. To proceed with the deletion steps:

1. Perform the filter for last sync time
2. Select all results using the tick box on the left hand side
3. Click "Select All" to select all clients in the entire organization matching that filter
4. Use the add tag button to apply a new tag to these users. We suggest something like "DeleteMe"

Now, you have successfully tagged all roaming clients to be deleted. There is currently a limitation of about 1,000 clients to bulk apply tags to, so this may need to be done in batches. Once complete, continue to the deletion step.  

Step 2: Delete

Above, the "DeleteMe" tag was just added to all machines that are targeted for removal from the Umbrella dashboard. To continue deleting these clients from the dashboard:

1. Apply a search by the tag "DeleteMe" from the Advanced Search
2. Select all clients on the page
3. Select all clients on the organization with the additional select all button
4. Use the delete button to remove these registrations from the dashboard.
5. Note, any currently active clients will re-register on their next startup.

That's it! You have now successfully removed your roaming clients which have been inactive for your desired length of time.