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Recently due to the pandemic crisis there is a need to be more conscious and responsible. I'm looking for a way to send a scheduled notification for all my company PC's that informs them at a specific hour that they can't forget some rules. This is the list of things that I tried to do:

1º Developed a VisualBasic form, saved it as .exe and used Task Scheduler from Windows to run it.

Problem: I can run it on my pc, but I tested on another one and it reports that it contains a Virus, so it won't open the notification. Plus, I'm not sure if I can remotely add a task on task scheduler for all PC's.

Possible alternative: Using powershell and active directory. With a script that adds that task everytime someone logs on their PC. I would not prefer this since it's a more "invasive" way and I'm new as SuperUser so I think it adds a lot of responsible when dealing with active directory.

2º Power Automate from Windows offers some basic and pretty straight forward options regarding this. I created a flow in which at a specific time every week day it will send a email to all my company employees. This works for its purpose but it doesn't send a notification or a reminder.

3º Power Automate from Windows Same thing as in 2ª, but instead of sending an email, it creates an event. This is the best option yet. Power Automate will create an event on every person's Outlook Calendar and it will set a reminder (that I define) at a specific hour with a pop up alert message.

Problem: Power Automate and Outlook Schedule options automatically fill all the peoples agenda taking in consideration how many times it repeats itself. For example, If I set up an event everyday for 8:00 AM during 3 months, it will fill all my calendar at 8:00 AM during 3 months. That's not ideal because it will fill all employees calendar and I just want to make this as simple as possible.

Any thoughts on what can I do? Thanks

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2 Answers 2

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Since you have Active Directory, it is possible to send a simple message to all currently logged on Users from your computer, using PowerShell and the msg command.

The following (untested) one-liner gets all the computernames of the OU Workstations in the domain sid-500.com. The command msg is executed for each of the computers in the OU, to send the message to all users which are currently logged on that computer.

(Get-ADComputer -SearchBase "OU=Workstations,DC=sid-500,DC=com" -Filter *).Name | Foreach-Object {Invoke-Command -ComputerName $_ {msg * "Please close all open files. The Server will be shut down in 5 Minutes"}}

(My own opinion: Users are not going to like having their work interrupted every day.)

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    +1 for Users are not going to like having their work interrupted every day.)
    – Máté Juhász
    Commented Jul 27, 2020 at 10:46
  • Thanks, I looked up msg command and I'm using it. Since we all share a network I think it's easier and less invasive to just open create a batch file with: msg * /time:60 "Don't forget to bla bla bla" After the batch file being created I'm going to use task scheduler to run this batch file at specific times. Also, I share your opinion. Users are not going to like this, I talked to my superior about this but this comes from people above him. So it's not like I want to do this way. It's what I'm asked to do. But thanks for your help. Helped me a lot.
    – Uba
    Commented Jul 28, 2020 at 9:34
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Compared to other workarounds, I personally think that workaround two may be more appropriate. Remind each user in the form of email, which will not interrupt the user's daily work, but can also inform them the message you want them to know.

In addition, from the perspective of the Outlook client, it is suggested to add "Request a Read Receipt" when editing emails so that you can see if they have already checked this email or just ignored it.

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  • Hey Jeff, thanks for your answer. I tried that but I was asked to "produce" a pop-up notification, something that required the user to click on it to close. I'm using msg command from CMD and it seems to work fine for now (I didn't fully implemented yet). In my opinion I would go for #2 option also. But it's not what my superiors wanted. But thanks for you answer and attention to this matter.
    – Uba
    Commented Jul 28, 2020 at 9:39

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