In SCCM 2012 R2 (1511), in Software Library, Software Updates, All Software Updates.
If I search and add Criteria for just Windows Server 2012 R2, and Critical patches, The "Percent Compliant" is always very high, in the upper 90s, because it includes "Not Required" assets...which also includes workstations.
Is this by design? Or can it be changed here?
It's frustrating because Percent Compliant shouldn't be including the workstations. It skews the numbers. Percent Compliant for a particular update should only be based off "Compliant", "Required", and "Unknown"
For example:
Let's say "Update X" shows as 3 assets compliant, 97 required, 2205 not required, and 0 unknown. IMO, the "Percent Compliant" should be 3%. Instead SCCM will show it as 96% compliant because it will include the "not required" ones.
I can create a report to scope it to a particular collection that will get me the proper "percent compliant" but it would be nice to see it in the "Software Library/Software Updates" area too.
Does anyone else deal with this? Is relying on Reports the only way I will see the proper "Percent Compliant"? Is there a way to have it calculate this without included the "Not Required"?
Yes, this is by design and cannot be changed. The ConfigMgr console is only used for basic monitoring, for more details or flexibility based on your demands you should use the built-in/custom reports instead.
The "Percent Compliant" is not mainly used in your scenario. Think about the following scenario:
If you created and deployed the Software Update Group to the target collections and later you found that the SUG's "Percent Compliant" not equals 100%, then you will have to pay attention because some PCs haven't reported back (showing "unknown") due to some reasons (offline or having communicating issues with MP) you need to troubleshoot.
Again, if you need to monitor the update compliance status, use the reports instead.