4.3.13.1. Groupings

 
IRM has a general-purpose mechanism called Groupings that allows IRM Users to create collections of Managed Objects from different Super Categories in a single Grouping object. Groupings can be created purely for organizational purposes and/or for permissions-related administrative purposes.
 
For example, Groupings can be created to represent organizational structures within a company e.g. Divisions, Departments, Business Units, Teams etc., or installed infrastructure systems, such as: Horizontal Plant, OSP, Risers, Windows Servers, Web Servers, etc.
 
Managed Objects can then be assigned to these Groupings as an indication of ownership (e.g. this division owns this equipment), membership (this user works in this team), Administrative control (this department administers this cabling), or some other relationship.
 
There are several ways in which an object can be included in a Grouping. For a detailed description of each way, click on the Overview Grouping section. 
 
The following screenshot images and text explain the main parts of the General tab of the Grouping Properties dialog, which is the main interface for managing Groupings in IRM.
4.3.13.1. Groupings
1

Specify basic Grouping object properties

Descriptive name given to a Grouping - a simple text string.
 
A Grouping object can be defined as a child of another Grouping object, simply by selecting another Grouping object from the drop down menu. Assigning a Parent Grouping to a Grouping object automatically adds the (child) Grouping object to the (parent) Grouping object. Additionally, the child Grouping objects will be listed in the grid in the General tab of the parent Grouping object.
2

Available Filters

     
The paginated data grid lists all potential "building blocks" for the selected Grouping. There are three main types of building blocks for a Grouping, any or all of which can be specified for a single Grouping object:
  • Areas - since many objects reside in an Area, choosing an Area is a natural and convenient way to specify a set of related objects.
  • Named Filters - can be created for any individual Super Category and allow the user to specify a set of conditions under which an object is included    
  • other Grouping objects - a Grouping can be a member of another Grouping, so a hierarchy of Groupings can be specified. For example, a "department" Grouping can be constructed from several "team" Groupings.
 
The data grid can be filtered out using the following convenience features:
  • a dropdown list of applicable Super Categories -
  • radio buttons switching between selected and non-selected items from the data grid -
  • a standard Quick Search box to filter by name -
 
Additionally, each Filter / Grouping member can be viewed or / and edited by clicking on its name under the Filter / Option column, which opens the appropriate Properties dialog. For Grouping entries this action opens another instance of the Grouping Properties dialog.
3

Adding a new Filter

The + Action button in the  opens a drop-down menu listing available Super Categories, which enables the user to select the Super Category within which a new Filter will be defined:
 
Selecting any of the Super Categories (except the Grouping), opens the appropriate Filter Properties dialog, where the user can specify the filter criteria that will be used to auto-assign the specific managed object(s) into the Group.
 
If the Groupings Super Category is selected, another instance of Grouping Properties opens, displaying a valid list of groupings allowing the user to assign object to this Grouping based upon the objects returned are assign to another Grouping.
 
For Example, let's assume you already have 2 groupings defined, named Copper Backbones and Fiber Backbones, which returned only the Equipment and Cables associated with each specific infrastructure. You could define a New Grouping named All Risers and just assign the two existing Groupings named Copper Backbones and Fiber Backbones to the All Risers grouping.
 
Grouping is valid if it doesn't violate agreed hierarchical structure of groupings. For more details on this, click on the Overview Grouping section. 
4

Eye Action button

Clicking on the Eye action icon opens the Filter Results sub-dialog, as displayed in the screenshot image below, which lists the results returned by the selected filter in a data grid. This option is restricted to Filter entries only, since those entries specify a single Super Category of objects, unlike Groupings and Areas. The grid lists several basic properties of the objects, such as Name, Type, Categories, Contacts and Vendor.
 
The example below lists all results returned by a public Circuit Super Category filter, which returns only Circuit objects that are assigned to the specified Category and Type.
 
Other tabs in the Grouping Properties dialog are each dedicated to one of the Super Categories whose objects can be included in a Grouping object. Each of these tabs display similar columns for each instance, like Name, Type, Categories, Vendors, Contacts, etc.
 
Note: Additionally, a Quick Search feature allows the user to easily search through the list based on column data:
 
 
IMPORTANT: if the object being copied is directly assigned to a grouping by copy and paste and not by filter, then when its duplicated the assigned copy and pasted groupings are persisted on the duplicated object. To put simply, the duplicated object is also assigned to the Grouping.