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We have a number of tasks users need to complete over the month (time sheets, reports, etc) and I am trying to think of the best way to force users to complete these tasks.

Currently, we send reminder emails. These are easily ignored. Accounts waste tons of time chasing people up.

I was hoping to find a way via group policy to redirect all their web traffic to a specific page informing them they need to get on top of their tasks. (A bit BOFH, I know...)

Or some other method that the user cannot ignore to force them to complete these tasks (they take 5 mins in total).

What do you guys think?

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    I am trying to think of the best way to force users to complete these tasks. - 1. Why have you been tasked with making sure they complete their tasks? Are you their manager? 2. This is a people problem, not a technology problem.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 6, 2015 at 16:41

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You could use GPO to force the browsers to use a specific web proxy and then install a forward web proxy such as apache on a new server and put the functionality you need into the proxy itself.

Clever users may be able to work out ways to bypass the proxy e.g. by using browsers that dont look at GPO settings but you could always block outbound HTTP and HTTPS traffic at your firewall for all servers except your forward web proxy

Unfortunately the "put the functionality you need" step is probably the big unknown and I'm not an expert in configuring Apache as a forward web proxy to know if what you want to do is possible

It will depend on what you mean by "redirect all their web traffic" and how to determine WHO to do this for as I presume you dont want to do it for everyone all the time!

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  • The plan is to apply to GPO to the whole domain and filter it to a Security Group which we will add the 'offenders' to. I had considered using an apache proxy but was hoping there was something I could use to avoid spending half a day setting up yet another virtual machine :)
    – ZZ9
    Mar 6, 2015 at 11:34
  • GPOs are not updated very often so applying it to a Security Group may not have the desired affect as they would be locked out until the GPO refreshed which could be a few hours. Unless you can put some logic in the proxy to check their account details
    – Phil
    Mar 6, 2015 at 13:35
  • We have GPOs set to every 15 mins for client machines
    – ZZ9
    Mar 6, 2015 at 16:15
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This is a classic case of trying to use technology to enforce a process or business practice and doing such things often leads to unintended results.

I'd find some other "incentive" to "encourage" them to do these things before forcing it down their throats with technology.

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  • I agree completely. It was my initial response to management.
    – ZZ9
    Mar 6, 2015 at 16:16
  • Type rating on that?
    – ZZ9
    Mar 6, 2015 at 16:17

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