With the release of CB 1806 we are now able to publish third party updates using custom catalogs.  Ideally, third party patches would function exactly like first party patches from an administration and automation perspective.  Currently there's two main areas where this is not the case.

Synchronization Schedule:
I could be wrong on this but I believe that subscribed catalogs sync automatically every 24-hours.  While that's nice, it would be great to simply integrate with the existing sync schedule.  Sync the catalogs, publish relevant metadata to WSUS, then sync the SUP(s).

Automatic Deployment Rules:
Currently, only update metadata is published by the automated sync process.  In order to actually deploy an update you must manually right click on it and select 'Publish Third-Party Software Update Content'.  That a big cold automation wet blanket.  A few ideas, in increasing order of greatness:
-Publish the full content of a given catalog.  Not ideal, but it solves the automation problem.
-Publish full…