Configuration Manager/Collections

Overview

Collections are equivalent to "groups that contain many users or devices". You can create collections to match your needs and perform operations on multiple resources at one time, or use built-in collections to perform operations on all devices or users.

Prerequisites

• The account used to operate must have an appropriate security role to perform the site server.
• To run reports for collections, the reporting services point must be installed.

Create a collection

Start the wizard

Open the Configuration Manager console and go to the Assets and Compliance workspace.

Select User Collections or Device Collections from the left pane, and right-click the blank to create a new one.

The steps to create a user or device collection are the same.

Configure the general information

Enter a name and description for the collection.

Click Browse and select a limiting collection. The collection you're creating will contain only members from the limiting collection.

Configure the general information

Click Add Rule, and select a type for the membership rule.

• Use incremental updates for this collection
  • periodically scan for and update only new or changed resources from the previous collection evaluation.

• Schedule a full update on this collection
  • Schedule a regular full evaluation of the collection membership.

Direct rule

Direct rule filters the users or devices that meet the criteria and adds them to the collection.

• Resource class: Select one of the following:
  • System Resource (Device Collection): Search for inventory data returned from client computers.
  • Unknown Computer (Device Collection): Select from values returned by unknown computers.
  • User Resource (User Collection): Search for user information.
  • User Group Resource (User Collection): Search for user group information.

• Attribute name
  • Select the attribute that you want to search for.

• Value
  • Enter a value to search the selected attribute name. Use the percent character % as a wildcard.

 Note:
The following options are only available when you select System Resource.

• Exclude resources marked as obsolete
  • If a device is marked as obsolete, exclude it in the search results.

• Exclude resources that do not have the Configuration Manager client installed
  • If the device doesn't have the client installed, exclude it in the results.

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The wizard looks for the attributes of the devices or users in the resource class and displays the devices or users that match the values specified in the previous step.

Select one or more resources and click Next to proceed.

Query rule

Dynamically update the membership of a collection based on a query.

• Name
  • Enter a name for the query.

• Import Query Statement
  • Select and import a query you want to use as the query rule.
  • Once the query rules are imported, the resource class can only be system resources.

• Resource class
  • Select a resource class. You can refer to Direct rule.

• Edit Query Statement
  • Write or modify a query to use as the rule.

Device Category Rule (Optional)

Associate collections to categories for easier management.

Include/Exclude collection rule (Optional)

Include/Exclude the members of other collections in the new collection.

Summary and start configuration

Click Next to proceed.

Click Close to exit the wizard.

Example for using a collection

Create a custom client setup for the collection and deploy it to suit different needs.