How to do approvals only on new updates?

Question

We usually set deadlines on installation of updates.  The problem we have is that when the new month's updates come out and we set deadline on needed updates, it also lists all our old updates.  So, when we set new approvals and deadlines that
are intended for new updates, it keeps moving the installation deadline forward even on very old updates.  This causes automatic installation of some very old critical updates to be delayed when a new application such as Project or Visio is installed
on an existing workstation.  If someone installs an Office application that needs updates from prior months, we would like the updates to install immediately based on the already passed deadline.
When we are doing monthly update approvals, how can we filter the All Updates list to show only the updates for that month so that previous old approvals are not changed.  I don't see any date filters.
Filtering by status of "unapproved" does not work because there are auto-approval rules for our update testing groups that prevents updates from showing in the filter as approval status "Unapproved."

Answer 1

There was nothing wrong with your previous practice of only approving updates that are displayed in NEEDED status. In fact, this is the recommended practice for managing update approvals.
There may be scenarios in which an out-of-date system triggers the need to approve a legacy update that no other systems need anymore, but this should be a fairly rare occurrence.
Obviously there's a scenario where an application is installed and needs updates, and there's also the scenario where a NEW system is put on the network and needs ALL of the available updates for that operating system. (This is where maintaining a patched
image and using WDS or MDT can be a lifesaver.)
I would not recommend "approve all updates whether needed or not" as a response to the occasional scenario that diverges from your normal routine. The impact of approving hundreds, if not thousands, of additional updates, plus the gigabytes of file storage
that will be consumed, is not worth the perceived benefit.
Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP - Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.