Bulk Population of Organizational Groups using Filters

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Organizational Groups (OGs) were successfully exported and imported from a Lab environment (lab01) to a Production environment (prod01). Although the group structure was recreated and the client machines (around 94 servers) have been redirected to the new Production server, the imported Organizational Groups remain empty. A way is needed to bulk-populate these groups so that automated patch policies (which rely on these OG targets) can function correctly.

Bulk-associate approximately 94 servers into specific "Batch" Organizational Groups (OGs). Because the servers lack a uniform naming convention or common subnet, a standard SQL pattern match (e.g., %Name%) is not feasible. Using existing Filters to define the membership may be preferred.

Environment

ITMS 8.7.x, 8.8

Cause

When resources lack identifiable naming patterns, Filters act as static or dynamic "buckets" of resources. By linking a Filter to an Automation Policy, the SMP Server (Symantec Management Platform or Notification Server (NS)) can iterate through every resource in that Filter and programmatically assign it to the corresponding Organizational Group.

Resolution

The issue occurs because Organizational Group memberships are not static properties stored within the object's XML during a standard export/import of the group container itself. While the "Folders" (Groups) were moved, the "Resource Associations" (the links between a specific Computer and a specific Group) were not. Since these are custom Organizational Groups, the new Notification Server (NS) does not automatically know which machine belongs to which group based solely on the redirection of the agent.

If the membership of these organization groups are based on "Filter" or "Target", then follow the steps from Creating and Populating an Organizational View or Group
and use the desired target containing those computers instead "All Computers" as the primary membership.

If you don't have a "container" defined, the best suggestion would be using similar approach from KB Creating an Automation Policy to move resources into an Organizational Group.

Since you have already redirected the servers from your Lab to Production, they exist in the new Notification Server's database as valid resources. However, as you observed, they are missing their "Batch" associations. KB Creating an Automation Policy to move resources into an Organizational Group provides the automation steps to bridge that gap without requiring you to manually drag and drop 94+ servers.

The KB outlines how to use the "Assign to Organizational Group" task in conjunction with an Automation Policy. This allows the NS to "look" for specific servers and automatically place them into the OGs you imported.

 

Step 1: Create or Identify your Filters

Ensure you have a Filter created for each "Batch." You can create these under Manage > Filters.

• If you have a list of GUIDs or Names, you can create a Static Filter and manually add the 94 servers for example. See "If you don't have a Filter defined" section below.

• If there is a shared attribute (e.g., a specific Software component installed), use a Query-based Filter.

Step 2: Create the Assignment Task

1. Navigate to Manage > Jobs and Tasks.

2. Right-click and select New > Task > Assign to Organizational Group.

3. Organizational Group: Select the target group (e.g., Batch 1).

4. Action: Select "Add to".

5. Click OK. Repeat this for each of your four Batch groups.

Step 3: Configure the Automation Policy (Filter-Based)

Instead of a Raw SQL query, we will point the policy directly to the Filter.

1. Navigate to Manage > Automation Policies > New Automation Policy.

2. Data Source: Change the dropdown to Report/Filter.

3. Filter/Report: Click the ellipses (...) and browse to the Filter you created in Step 1.

4. Actions:

   • Select Run Task.

   • Select the corresponding task from Step 2.

   • Execution: Ensure "Run for each row" is selected. This ensures every machine in the Filter triggers the assignment task.

5. Evaluation: Set to "Run Now" or schedule it to run once.

 

If you don't have a Filter defined:

Step 1: Create the "Inclusion List" Filter

1. On the SMP Console, navigate to Manage > Filters.

2. Right-click a folder and select New > Filter.

3. Name the filter (e.g., Batch 1 Servers - Manual List).

4. Under Filter Definition, change the dropdown to Query.

5. Enter the following SQL code, pasting your server names into the IN clause:

 

SELECT [Guid]
FROM vComputer
WHERE [Name] IN (
'SERVER_NAME_01',
'SERVER_NAME_02',
'SERVER_NAME_03'
-- Paste your formatted list of 94 servers here
)
AND [IsManaged] = 1

6. Click Update Results to confirm the count matches your list.

7. Click Save Changes.

 

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Troubleshooting & Comparison

Method	Best Used For...	Benefit
Naming Pattern (SQL)	Consistent prefixes (e.g., PROD-SRV-)	Fully automated; no manual list updates.
Filter-Based (Current)	Random names or unique sets	Provides high accuracy for specific, non-standard lists of servers.
Subnet/IP (SQL)	Location-based grouping	Easy to target specific data centers.

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Verification

1. Check Task History:
   Go to the task created in Step 2 and check the Task Status. It should show a successful run for each machine in the filter.

2. Check OG Membership:

   • Navigate to Manage > Organizational Views and Groups.

   • Select the Batch group.

   • Verify the count has increased from 0 to the number of resources in your Filter.