Overview
Grouping and filtering devices is a very useful method to manage many devices. For example, you can group devices by location or purpose. A group can contain devices dynamically filtered by different criteria.
To view the groups:
- Click on the Devices icon in the Overview Dashboard.
- In the Devices Console, note the Groups icon in the upper right.
- When you click on Groups, the Groups window opens, listing all of the available groups.
The “All” group at the top of the list is a master group. The master group contains all the devices enrolled in the domain that the Radix Device Manager can display.
There is no limit to the number of groups you can create in an account. A device can be a member of more than one group.
If you create a filter and perform a search, the devices that comply with the filter conditions will immediately appear in a group. All of the rules and tasks relevant to that group will be applied to all of the devices in the group.
Example
Let’s use the Groups search bar to look for the group “Teachers Laptops”. (Note: Group names are not case-sensitive. Therefore, a group named “Teachers Laptops” is not distinct from a group named “teachers laptops”.)
In this case, the filter group called “Teachers” filters all devices containing a tag called “teachers laptops”.
Adding Devices to a Group
To add more devices to our “Teachers Laptops” group, we add the tag “teachers laptops” to another device.
To add a tag to a device:
- Click on the Devices icon in the Overview Dashboard. This will display the Devices Console.
- Find the device that you would like to include in the Teachers Laptops group. You can use the Search bar at the top to locate the device.
- Click on the device’s kebab menu on the right-hand side of the device’s row. The Commands grid opens.
- Select the Tags command tile. The Tags window opens.
- Enter the tag “teachers laptops”, and press Enter. The tag “teachers laptop” will appear among the tags attached to the device. (Note: Tag names are case-sensitive, so be sure to use lower-case letters in the tag name.)
- Click Confirm to confirm the tag choice and close the Tags window.
- Click on Groups, and search for the Teachers Laptops group. You’ll find the new device listed among the member devices in the group.
Filters and Filter Conditions
The Search bar at the top of the Device Console allows you to search for a particular device. If you know the name of a tag applied to a device, the username, or the device name, you can type that into the Search bar. For example, if we type “teacher” into the Search bar, we receive a list of all devices with the string “teacher” in one of their tags:
If you click on the Filter icon in the Search bar, you can narrow down the search using a wide range of conditions.
Currently, there are 14 conditions that you can use to filter devices:
Search Criterion | Description |
---|---|
Tag | Will filter by tags (= identifying names) that can be applied to a device (either by the agent or server-side) and can describe the essence of the device. |
App with version | Will filter devices by a specific software app. You’ll have to supply the software package name and its version number. |
App not installed | Will filter devices by apps that are not on the device. |
Will filter devices by their main email account on the device. | |
Model | Will filter by the model of the device. |
Last seen | Will filter by the number of days that the device was seen connected and online. |
Policy/Kiosk | Will filter by the software policy that is applied to the device. Software policies are a list of apps that are blocked from the device, while Kiosk mode is a list of apps that are allowed on the device. |
Available internal storage (in MB) | The amount of available space presently on the device. |
OS Version | Operating system version (number). |
Hardware ID | The internal hardware ID, typically represented by the MAC Address. |
IMEI | Will filter by the International Mobile Equipment Identity number, which is unique for every mobile device. |
Name | Will filter by the name applied to the device. |
Public IP | Will filter devices by their IP address. |
OS | Will filter by the device’s operating system (Android, Windows, ChromeOS, iOS, MacOS). |
Filter Criteria
If you are filtering the devices by the tags employed, email address, model, hardware ID, IMEI, device name, or Public IP, you’ll see a dropdown list of filter criteria:
Filter Criterion | Description |
---|---|
Is | Requires that the search result be exactly like the string you enter. If you search for the string “teacher”, only those devices with the tag “teacher” will appear. However, “teachers” or “Teacher” will not appear in the search. |
Startswith | Requires that the search result only start with the string that you enter |
Endswith | Requires that the search result only end with the string that you enter |
Contains | Requires that the search result only contain the string that you enter |
Doesn’t exist | Will display all devices without the specific search criterion: for example, it will display all devices without tags. |
Also, you can combine several types of search criteria, separated by “AND” or “OR” operators, to further refine the search results.
In the example below, the search filter uses three criteria. The filter displays only 1) Windows devices that 2) contain the string “teacher” within one of their tags, and 3) have been used within the last 1500 days.
If you click on Edit Filter, you can save the filter, to use in future searches. In our example, we saved the search under the name “Teacher_laptop”.
The results of our search are as follows:
The search displays all Windows devices that 1) have the tag “teachers laptops”, and also 2) were last seen in the year 2021.
Removing a Search
To stop the search filter and view all of the devices again, click on the Show all devices icon at the top of the Devices console:
The Devices Console will display the “All” group, with all the devices, as before the search.
A Practical Example
As a practical example, we will use the search function to create groups of devices.
For example, some devices contain the tag “Class_A”, while other devices contain the tag “Class_B”, and some contain both tags. We have four possible options:
Option A: To create a group to filter all devices that have the tag Class_A only
It gives us the following search result:
Option B: To create a group to filter all devices that have the tag Class_B only
It gives the search result:
Option C: To create a group to filter all devices that have the tag Class_A or the tag Class_B:
This search filter produces the following results:
Option D: To create a group to filter all devices that have the tags Class_A and Class_B
The search results will appear as follows: