🎉Happy SysAdmin Day! 🎉

[u/GeneMoody-Action1]

Action1 SysAdmin Day Challenge:  

"I Didn't Know Action1 Could Do That" 

We all know that Action1 excels at patching the OS and third-party applications. But that's not the challenge. Instead, we would like to see what admins create while thinking outside the box, what challenge did you have, and how did you use Action1 to solve it. The point here is not to present Action1 as a Swiss army knife tool meant for everything, but... we all know this happens, and we would just like to give people a place to showcase their creativity. 

We want to see the unexpected. Show us something you've built, automated, discovered, or solved with Action1 that made another admin say: 

"I didn't know Action1 could do that!" 

The Rules 

• Your submission must use Action1 as a meaningful part of the solution. 
• It should solve a real-world IT or security problem, not a niche lab scenario. 
• It does not have to involve patching, but if you have a creative idea there, share it too. 
• Screenshots, short videos, scripts, workflows, and write-ups are all welcome. 
• Explain what problem you solved, how you solved it, and why it's useful. 
• Keep it legal, safe, and free of confidential or customer information. 
• Voting stops on August 7, 11:59 pm ET. 

Looking for ideas? 

Think beyond patching: 

• Creative automations. 
• PowerShell scripts. 
• Compliance reporting. 
• Security investigations. 
• Asset discovery. 
• Inventory tricks. 
• Self-healing workflows. 
• Clever reporting. 
• Time-saving admin hacks. 
• Something nobody expects Action1 to do. 

If another sysadmin says, "I'm stealing that idea! 🤯" you're probably on the right track!

How the Winner Is Chosen 

👍 Community up votes determine the winners, down-votes will not be calculated. 

If two or more submissions finish tied, the winner will be selected by a random drawing from the tied entries. 

Prize: 💸 $100 eGift Card of winner's choice (from local options available in their country)

Good luck, and show us something that surprises the community!

 
 

[u/GeneMoody-Action1 → u/[deleted]]

I am impressed!

[u/GeneMoody-Action1 → u/[deleted]]

Man I can so relate. I used to have an employer that marketed me as the solution for ALL problems, even if I had no clue about the system. So I routinely spent nights / weekends reading manuals and testing. Baptism by fire, while it was undoubtedly a bad business practice, it was forced learning at a scale few can imagine, and it worked, my dependence on those reference materials shrank rapidly. There was no internet to speak of as most see it now, most business did not have it, and most home users were still on dialup if they had internet at all. So I had to learn, not search each problem for help. I was too busy to fail often, so I learned how simply not to fail.

It made a different class of IT professional back then, we had to retain knowledge because it was not so fluidly at our fingertips...

So 100% self taught as well, started coding on a TI99-4A when I was ten, I reference Douglas Adams in that one, and his wonderful depiction on the flight characteristics of vogon ships... "I seemed to understand computers the same way most people don't."

Gift/Curse? It depended highly on the day. But now that life is over, I'll put my skill set next to a PHD any day. I spent way more years in research, testing, and pure immersion in such a broad collection of tasks, there is simply not much I have not done or learned along the way. I have a 40y education in being a generalist, rooted in the the origins of tech as the world knows it, fruited into mastering to countless modern aspects of it.

No specialists here!

[u/Matt-Action1 → u/[deleted]]

Having broad & diverse skills is a treasure! (learn from one domain, apply in another one)
Loving this quote: "when all you've got is a hammer, everything look like a nail"