Action summary log
Clicking View Log displays a log containing summary information about the last run of the Group Family. The log includes descriptions of the error situations, if any occurred during the run, and summarizes the quantitative results of the run, such as the number of updated groups, the number of created groups, and the number of objects that have group memberships changed.
The log can be divided into three sections: Prolog, Error List, and Epilog. The Prolog and Epilog sections are always present in the log, whereas the Error List section only appears if any errors or warnings occurred during the run.
The Prolog section provides the following information:
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The date and time the run was started
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The number of managed objects found in the Group Family scope
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The total amount of groupings found by analyzing the group-by properties
The Epilog section provides the following information:
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The number of errors, if any occurred
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The number of invalid combinations of group-by property values, if any detected
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The number of groups the Group Family created during the run
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The number of groups the Group Family updated during the run
The Error List section provides information about all errors and warnings the Group Family encountered during the run.
Steps for administering a Group Family
This topic covers some task-specific procedures that you can use to change configuration and properties of an existing Group Family.
To open the property sheet for a Group Family
To view or modify grouping rules
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Groupings tab, and then click Configure.
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Follow Steps 5 through 7 of the procedure for creating a Group Family. For more information, see Steps for creating a Group Family.
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On the Group-by Properties page, click Finish.
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Click OK to close the property sheet.
To view or modify group creation-related rules
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Controlled Groups tab, and then click Manage Rules.
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Follow Steps 9 through 12 of the procedure for creating a Group Family. For more information, see Steps for creating a Group Family.
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On the Exchange-related Settings page, click Finish.
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Click OK to close the property sheet.
To manually add a group to a Group Family
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Controlled Groups tab, and then click Capture Groups.
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In the Capture Groups window, click Add.
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In the Assign Group to Grouping dialog, do the following, and then click OK:
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Click Select, and then select the group you want to add.
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In Group-by property, type a value of the group-by property. If multiple group-by properties are defined, type a value for each, so as to determine the grouping to which you want the group to be assigned.
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Click OK to close the Capture Groups window.
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Click OK to close the property sheet.
To remove a group from a group family
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Controlled Groups tab, and then click Capture Groups.
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In the Capture Groups window, select the group you want to remove from the Group Family, click Remove, and then click OK.
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Click OK to close the property sheet.
To schedule a Group Family update
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Schedule tab, and then click Configure.
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On the Group Family Scheduling page, do the following, and then click Finish:
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Select Schedule Group Family to run, and then set the appropriate date, time, and frequency of Group Family update.
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If you also want the Group Family to run one time immediately after you close the property sheet, select Run Group Family once after completing this page.
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From the Run on this server list, select the Administration Service you want to run the Group Family.
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Click OK to close the property sheet.
To view results of a Group Family update
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Open the property sheet for the Group Family.
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Click the Action Summary tab, and then click View Log.
NOTE: Deleting a Group Family only deletes the configuration storage group of the Group Family. This operation does not delete the controlled groups of the Group Family. Later, you can configure another Group Family to take control of those groups.
Departmental Group Family
Suppose the Organizational Unit (OU) named Users contains a number of user accounts. Also assume that for each of the values listed below there are one or more user accounts in the Users OU with the Department property set to that value. Thus, the following values of the Department property are present in the user accounts held in the Users OU:
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Accounting
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Executive Services
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Facilities
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Finance
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Government Services
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Human Resources
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Information Technology
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Operations
In this section, you can find the instructions on how to implement a Group Family that creates and maintains a separate group for users in each of those departments. The Group Family configuration storage group will be created in the Organizational Unit named Groups. The Group Family will be configured to create the departmental groups in that same OU.
Open the Active Roles Console, and perform the following steps to implement the Group Family.
To create and run the Departmental Group Family
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Right-click the Groups OU and select New > Group Family.
This will start the New Group Family Wizard. The remaining steps apply to that wizard.
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On the Welcome page, click Next.
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In the Group Family name box, type Departmental Group Family. Click Next.
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Click the Pre-configured grouping by option, click Department in the list under that option, and then click Next.
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Remove the Groups OU from the Containers list, and add the Users OU to that list. Click Next.
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Click the User option, and then click Next.
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Verify that the Group by these properties list includes the only entry—Department. Click Next.
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Select the Skip this step, without capturing groups manually check box. Click Next.
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Click Next to accept the default rule for group naming: CG-%<key.department>.
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Click Next to accept the default group scope and type.
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Click Next to accept the default location for the controlled groups: Group Family home OU.
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Click Next to accept the default settings related to Exchange.
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Select the Run Group Family once after completing this page check box. Click Next.
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Click Finish.
Once you have completed these steps, the Group Family performs all the necessary processing to create the groups, one group per department, and adds users to the appropriate groups based on the Department property.
You might look at the contents of the Groups OU in the Active Roles Console to verify that the departmental groups are created successfully. You might also examine properties of a group generated by the Group Family, to verify that the membership list of the group is correct. For example, the membership list of the CG-Executive Services group consists of the user accounts that have the Department property set to Executive Services.
Dynamic groups
Active Directory allows groups (herein called basic groups) to include members statically—select objects and add them to groups. Active Roles provides a flexible, rule-based mechanism for populating groups. Once set up, the process automatically adds and removes members from groups.
Active Roles provides rule-based groups called dynamic groups. Membership rules determine whether an object is a member of a dynamic group. A membership rule may take a form of search query, object static inclusion and exclusion rule, and group member inclusion and exclusion rule. As the environment changes, the memberships of objects in dynamic groups automatically change to adapt to the new environment.
Active Roles dynamic groups reduce the cost of maintaining lists and groups, while increasing the accuracy and reliability of maintenance. Furthermore, it automatically keeps distribution lists and security groups up to date, eliminating the need to add and remove members manually.
To automate the maintenance of group membership lists, dynamic groups provide the following features:
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A rule-based mechanism that automatically adds and removes objects from groups whenever object attributes change in Active Directory.
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Flexible membership criteria that enable both query-based and static population of groups.
In the Active Roles Console, dynamic groups are marked with the following icon: .
When you convert a basic group to a dynamic group, the group loses all members that were added to the group when it was a basic group. This is because members of a dynamic group can only be defined by membership rules.
When you convert a dynamic group to a basic group, the group retains all its members included due to the membership rules. During this conversion, the group only loses the membership rules.
When a member of a dynamic group (such as a user or another group) is deprovisioned, the dynamic group is automatically updated to remove that member. As a result, deprovisioning a user or group removes that user or group from all dynamic groups. This behavior is by design.