Introduction to Collections in Configuration Manager

Collections in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager represent logical groupings of resources, such as users and devices. You can use collections to help you perform many tasks, such as managing applications, deploying compliance settings, or installing software updates. You can also use collections to manage groups of client settings. For more information, see How to Configure Client Settings in Configuration Manager. Additionally, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager uses collections with role-based administration to specify the collections that an administrative user can access. For more information, see Planning for Security in Configuration Manager.

In Configuration Manager, recently viewed collections appear in the Users node and in the Devices node in the Assets and Compliance workspace in the Configuration Manager console.

Collection Rules

Configuration Manager collections contain one or more rules that control the membership of the collection. There are four rules that you can use:

Direct Rule

Direct rules let you to choose the users or computers that you want to add as members to a collection. This rule gives you direct control over which resources are members of the collection. The membership does not automatically change unless a resource is removed from Configuration Manager. Configuration Manager must discover the resources or you must import the resources before you can add them to a direct rule collection. Direct rule collections have a higher administrative overhead than query rule collections because you must modify this collection type manually. For more information about direct rule collections, see How to Create Collections in Configuration Manager.

Query Rule

Query rules dynamically update the membership of a collection based on a query that Configuration Manager runs on a schedule. For example, you can create a collection of users who are a member of the Human Resources organizational unit in Active Directory Domain Services. Unlike direct rule collections, this collection membership automatically updates when you add or remove new users to the Human Resources organizational unit. For more information about query rule collections, see How to Create Collections in Configuration Manager.

Include Collections Rule

The include collections rule lets you include the members of another collection in a Configuration Manager collection. Configuration Manager updates the membership of the current collection on a schedule if the membership of the included collection changes. For more information about the include collection rule, see How to Create Collections in Configuration Manager.

Exclude Collections Rule

The exclude collections rule lets you exclude the members of another collection from a Configuration Manager collection. Configuration Manager updates the membership of the current collection on a schedule if the membership of the excluded collection changes. For more information about the exclude collection rule, see How to Create Collections in Configuration Manager.

Note
If a collection includes both include collection and exclude collection rules and there is a conflict, the exclude rule takes priority over the include rule.

Default Collections in Configuration Manager

By default, Configuration Manager includes the following collections, which cannot be modified.

Collection name

Description

All User Groups

Contains the user groups that are discovered by using Active Directory Security Group Discovery.

All Users

Contains the users who are discovered by using Active Directory User Discovery.

All Users and User Groups

Contains the All Users and the All User Groups collections. This collection cannot be modified and contains the largest scope of user and user group resources.

All Desktop and Server Clients

Contains the server and desktop devices that have the Configuration Manager client installed. Membership is maintained by Heartbeat Discovery.

All Mobile Devices

Contains the mobile devices that are managed by Configuration Manager. Membership is restricted to those mobile devices that are successfully assigned to a site or discovered by the Exchange Server connector.

Note
In Configuration Manager SP1, this collection excludes the mobile devices that are enrolled by Windows Intune.

All Systems

Contains the All Desktop and Server Clients, the All Mobile Devices, and All Unknown Computers collections. In Configuration Manager SP1, this collection also includes the mobile devices that are enrolled by Windows Intune.

This collection cannot be modified and contains the largest scope of device resources.

All Unknown Computers

Contains generic computer records for multiple computer platforms. You can use this collection to deploy an operating system by using a task sequence and PXE boot, bootable media, or prestaged media.

Incremental Collection Updates

When you enable incremental updates for a collection, Configuration Manager periodically scans for new or changed resources from the previous collection evaluation and updates a collections membership with these resources, independently of a full collection evaluation. By default, when you enable incremental collection updates, it runs every 10 minutes and helps keep your collection data up-to-date without the overhead of a full collection evaluation.

Note
When you create a new collection, incremental updates are disabled by default.

What’s New in Configuration Manager

Note
The information in this section also appears in the Getting Started with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager guide.

The following table lists features that are new or that have changed in collections since Configuration Manager 2007.

Feature	Description
User Collections and Device Collections nodes	You can no longer combine user resources and device resources in the same collection. The Configuration Manager console has two new nodes for user collections and device collections.
Sub collections	Sub collections are no longer used in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. In Configuration Manager 2007, sub collections had two main uses: Organize collections in folders. In System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, you can now create a hierarchy of folders in which to store collections. Sub collections were often used in Configuration Manager 2007 for phased software deployments to a larger collection of computers. In System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, you can use include rules to progressively increase the membership of a collection. For more information, see How to Manage Collections in Configuration Manager.
Include collection rules and exclude collection rules	In System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, you can include or exclude the contents of another collection from a specified collection.
Incremental collection member evaluation	Incremental collection member evaluation periodically scans for new or changed resources from the previous collection evaluation and updates a collections membership with these resources, independently of a full collection evaluation. By default, when you enable incremental collection member updates, it runs every 10 minutes and helps to keep your collection data up-to-date without the overhead of a full collection evaluation.
Migration support	Collections can be migrated from Configuration Manager 2007 collections. For more information, see Planning a Migration Job Strategy in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.
Role-based administration security scopes	You can use collections to limit access to Configuration Manager objects. For more information, see Planning for Security in Configuration Manager.
Collection resources	In Configuration Manager 2007, collections contained only resources from the site where they were created and from child sites of that site. In System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, collections contain resources from all sites in the hierarchy.
Collection limiting	In System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, all collections must be limited to the membership of another collection. When you create a collection, you must specify a limiting collection. A collection is always a subset of its limiting collection.