Client Management Suite

I need to upgrade Internet Explorer in our environment although management wants me to do it one department at a time.  Also have to take into consideration a potentially different deployment day/time for each department.

Thinking of using a filter in the managed software delivery policy and manually removing departments from it to add these machines into the push each time.  As for scheduling, was thinking about creating multiple schedules and enabling the "End Date" under Advanced settings for each department's deployment.  In this scenario, irregardless of how the boxes are checked under "Only perform check if...", should setting an end date effectively stop the policy each time until the next schedule goes active?

Now I could create a separate policy for each department but didn't really want to go this route due to the number I'd have to make.  Figured removing departments from my filter is easy enough before each schedule becomes active although having the IE push occur during specific timeframes doesn't seem that simple to me.  In addition to answering my question, I'd appreciate any thoughts you guys may have on getting this task done more easily.  Thanks in advance!

You pretty much answered your own question. But I would configure a policy for each department, just so it is easier to track and configure.

Narrowing departments down should be easier if they are located in different subnets, so you go a filter SQL based simple like this example "SELECT vc.Guid FROM vComputer vc WHERE vc.[IP Address] LIKE '10.10.10.%'". If they are not based on different subnets you will need to find a parameter that fits you, such as filtering them by user, hostname or such. Let me know if you need any other help with this.

I agree. In this scenario filters are my friends. I would normally start with a blank target filter and find a way to separate. For me, usually by host name or site/subnet. Then I will add to the target filter which is connected to a master policy. It's great to have multiple policies too, just more clutter in my opinion. Also, if you have a large subnet you can always split your query using select top 50% etc.