Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
You can use rules to manage the membership of Configuration Manager collections. Table
5-3 describes the different rule types you can use to manage the membership of
Configuration Manager collections.
TABLE 5-3
Collection rule types
Rule
Description
Direct rule
You can use a direct rule to add a specific resource to a collection. If you add a
resource to a collection by using a direct rule, the resource will remain in the col-
lection until manually removed. You can create or manage direct membership
rules for a collection by using either of the following methods:
■
Use the Create Direct Membership Rule Wizard. This wizard opens when
you select Direct Rule in the Create Device Collection Wizard or in the
Create User Collection Wizard.
Add the selected items to an existing collection. You can select existing
resources and add these resources to existing user collections by using
the Users node and the Devices node located in the Assets And
Compliance workspace. This creates a direct membership rule for the
target collection that contains the selected resources.
■
Query rule
You can use a query rule to add members to a collection based on their attributes.
For example, you can create a collection that contains devices that are within a
specific Active Directory organizational unit (OU), or you can create a collection
that contains devices on which a specific software version is installed. In both
cases, collection membership is updated dynamically based on the query rule's
results. You can configure collection membership to be reevaluated according to
a schedule.
Include collections
You can use the include collections rule type to include the members of another
collection in the membership evaluation for the current collection.
Exclude collections
You can use the exclude collections rule type to exclude the members of another
collection in the membership evaluation for the current collection.
When you create a new collection, you specify a base collection called a limiting collection.
The limiting collection becomes a foundation for resources that can be added to the new
collection. You can use limiting collections along with role-based access control to ensure that
delegated administrators can see only objects that are relevant for their administrative tasks.
Configuration Manager reevaluates all of a collection's rules on a specified schedule. You
can also trigger on-demand reevaluation of collection membership. The default schedule to
evaluate the membership of custom collections is once every seven days.
Configuration Manager supports incremental evaluation of members of a collection. This
feature runs separately from the full update cycle, and it scans periodically for new resources
or resources that have changed since the previous collection evaluation. If you enable incre-
mental evaluation, incremental collection member evaluation runs every five minutes.
Figure 5-5 shows enabling incremental updates during collection creation.
