Collections in System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager represent logical groupings of resources including users and devices. You can use collections to help you accomplish many tasks including application management, deploying compliance settings, or installing software updates. You can also use collections to manage groups of client settings. Additionally, collections are used in System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager with role-based administration to specify the collections that an administrative user can access.
Collection Rules
Configuration Manager collections contain one or more rules that control the membership of the collection. There are four rules you can use:
Direct Rule
Direct membership rules allow you to choose users or computers that you want to add to a collection. This gives you direct control over which resources are members of the collection and this membership does not change (unless a resource is removed from Configuration Manager). Resources must have been discovered by System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager before they can be added to a direct rule collection. Direct rule collections have a higher administrative overhead than query rule collections as you must make changes to this collection type manually.
Query Rule
Query rules dynamically update the membership of a collection based on a query which is run on a schedule by Configuration Manager. For example, you can create a collection of devices that are a member of the ‘Human Resources’ organizational unit in Active Directory domain services. Unlike direct rule collections, this collection membership will be automatically updated when new devices are added to, or removed from the Human Resources organizational unit.
Include Rule
Include rules allow you to include the members of another collection in a Configuration Manager collection. The membership of the current collection will be updated on a schedule when members of the included collection change.
Exclude Rule
Exclude rules allow you to exclude the members of another collection from a Configuration Manager collection. The membership of the current collection will be updated on a schedule when members of the included collection change. Exclude rules always take precedence, if a record is in the excluded collection, it will not be in the collection using the exclude rule.
Default Collections in Configuration Manager
The following collections are included by default in Configuration Manager and cannot be modified.
| Collection Name | Description |
|---|---|
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All User Groups |
Contains the user groups that are discovered by using Active Directory Security Group Discovery. |
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All Users |
Contains the users who are discovered by using Active Directory User Discovery. |
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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. |
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All Desktop and Server Clients |
Contains the server and desktop devices that have the Configuration Manager client installed. Membership is determined by Heartbeat Discovery. |
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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. |
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All Systems |
Contains the All Desktop and Server Clients, the All Mobile Devices, and All Unknown Computers collections. This collection cannot be modified and contains the largest scope of device resources. |
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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 pre-staged media. |
What’s New in Configuration Manager
The following features are new or 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. |
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Sub collections are no longer used in System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager. |
In Configuration Manager 2007, sub collections had two main uses:
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Include rules and exclude rules |
In System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, you can include or exclude the contents of another collection from a specified collection. |
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Incremental collection member evaluation |
Incremental collection member evaluation periodically scans for only new or changed resources from the previous collection evaluation and updates a collections membership with only these resources, independently of a full collection evaluation. By default, incremental collection member evaluation runs every 5 minutes and helps to keep your collection data up to date without the overhead of a full collection evaluation. |
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Migration support |
Collections can be migrated from Configuration Manager 2007 collections. |
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Role-based administration security scopes |
Collections can be used to limit access to Configuration Manager objects. |
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Collections contain resources from all sites in the hierarchy |
In Configuration Manager 2007, collections contained only resources from the site where they were created. In System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, collections contain resources from all sites in the hierarchy. |
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Collection limiting |
In System Center 2012 R2 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. |