Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 : Creating Collections (part 3) - Creating Subcollections, Unlinking Subcollections

10/4/2013 7:57:11 PM

3. Creating Subcollections

When a collection has one or more subcollections associated with it, any actions (such as advertisements) performed on the collection can also be performed on the subcollection. However, each subcollection is still its own collection and as such is governed by its own membership rules. Placing them as subcollections within a new collection provides a way to link different collections rather than a method of nesting collections.

Suppose a particular business unit can be further subdivided into smaller units. Management Information Services (MIS), for example, might be divided into various support areas—say, PC Support, Network Support, and Server Support. Let’s say that you create a collection for each of these groups—MIS, PC Support, Network Support, and Server Support. The last three collections could become subcollections of the MIS collection. This reclassification enables you to advertise packages to the MIS collection, which includes the members of the three subcollections. If you don’t need to hit all the collections, you can opt not to when you create the advertisement. And you still have the ability to advertise to each collection directly.

To link one collection to another, thus creating a subcollection, follow these steps:

1.	Navigate to the Collections folder in the SMS Administrator Console and expand it.
2.	Right-click the collection that you want to associate with a subcollection, choose New from the Context menu, and then choose Link To Collection to display the Browse Collection dialog box, shown in Figure 13. Figure 13. The Browse Collection dialog box.
3.	The Browse Collection dialog box contains a list of all the available collections. Select the collection you want to add as a subcollection and then click OK.

You can easily view which collections have subcollections and what those subcollections are by expanding the collection entries in the SMS Administrator Console, shown in Figure 14. In this example, the Scruffy Clients collection has a subcollection named Finance that itself has a subcollection named All Windows XP Systems, which is one of the default collections.

Figure 14. Viewing subcollections in the SMS Administrator Console.

Tip

You can view subcollections of a collection by clicking the plus sign (+) preceding the collection name.

4. Unlinking Subcollections

If you need to “unlink” a subcollection to reorganize your collection structure, follow these steps:

1.	Navigate to the Collections folder, expand it, and select the subcollection you want to delete.
2.	Right-click the subcollection and then choose Delete from the context menu to initiate the Delete Collection Wizard, as shown in Figure 15. Figure 15. The Delete Collection Wizard Welcome page.
3.	Verify the subcollection name and then click Next to display the Delete Collection Instance page, as shown in Figure 16. Figure 16. The Delete Collection Instance page.
4.	Select Yes to delete this instance of the collection. Note that you’ll be deleting only this instance of the collection. You won’t delete any other instance of the same collection that appears elsewhere in the Collections folder.
5.	Click Next and then click Finish. The Collections folder will be refreshed, and the subcollection will no longer be displayed or linked.