SMS: How to Define a Collection Using Direct Membership Rules

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Steps to Create a New Collection Using Direct Membership Rule

1. Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Right-click Collections in the left pane, point to New on the shortcut menu, and click Collection.
2. Type a name for the new collection. If you want, also type a comment, such as a description of the collection's purpose.
3. Choose the Membership Rules tab and click New Direct Membership (leftmost on the toolbar above the text box) to start the Direct Membership Rules Wizard. When the wizard's Welcome dialog box appears, click Next.
4. The Search for Resources dialog box is used to gather a list of potential members. You can select members from this list to add to the collection. Note that the criteria you specify in this dialog box will not be used to later re-evaluate the collection. In using a Direct Membership Rule, you are selecting specific resources from the database to be added to the collection. The criteria defined in this dialog box are used to determine the contents of the Select Resources dialog box. After choosing the criteria, click Next to go to the Collection Limiting dialog box. See the following examples:
   • To list all instances of a given resource class (Users, User Groups, or System Resources) using the Select Resources dialog box, use the Resource Class list to determine which class will be listed. Select Agent Name as the Attribute Name and use the character "%" as the value.
   • To list all Systems Management Server clients in a site using the Select Resources dialog box, use the following criteria:

     Resource class: System Resource
     Attribute name: Client
     Value: 1
     
     

5. Use the Collection Limiting dialog box to specify a collection to search for the resources specified in the Search for Resources dialog box. This is useful if the account you are using does not have the rights to search the entire resource database or if you would like to further filter your results set. This value can be left blank to search the entire resource database. After specifying the desired search collection (if any), click Next to continue to the Select Resources dialog box.
6. The Select Resources dialog box includes a list of resources that match the criteria entered in steps 4 and 5 above. Individual resources can be selected for membership here. After selecting the resources you want to be direct members of the collection, click Next to go on to the completion dialog box.
7. Verify the list of resources, then add the rule by clicking Finish.
8. Click OK to add the new collection to the site database.

Notes:

• You can control access to a collection through the Security tab of the Properties dialog box.
• Collections can have multiple Direct Membership Rules, so if the wizard won't allow selection of all the resources you want using one rule (for example, resources from different resource classes), simply create additional rules to add the other resources.
• For collections containing only Direct Membership Rules, the Update this Collection on a Schedule check box should be cleared because this setting will have no effect on membership for these collections.