How groups are added to the Content Manager

Overview

By default, the SnapComms App software automatically adds Active Directory Security Groups and Active Directory Distribution Groups to your Content Manager. Once added, those Groups can then be targeted by your SnapComms Administrators when creating Content (Desktop Alerts, Tickers, Screensavers, Wallpapers, etc.) via the Content Manager.
You can also manually add groups, or hide unwanted groups within the Content Manager.

Prerequisite

Access to the User & Groups menu is required to view and manage Users within the Users page.
This is managed within the Management > Administrators menu.

To give an Administrator access to the Users & Groups menu:

• Navigate to Management using the left navigation menu
• Click on Administrators
• Click on the Username of the Administrator to update
• Scroll down to Management Access and locate Users & Groups
• Toggle it ON
• Click on Save

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Jump to:

• How Groups are automatically created
• How Groups are manually created
• How to manage Groups
• How to find and export Groups

How Groups are automatically created

When a user logs onto Windows, a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) query is made by Windows to obtain information from Active Directory such as which groups the user is a member of. The SnapComms App obtains the memberOf information from Windows to identify new groups the user is a member of. This action is performed at Windows Startup and again every 6 hours if any details have changed.
Note: The query at startup is only done if 6 hours or more have elapsed since the last check (by default - this duration can be set in the Windows App Profile under App Management)

A valid group within the SnapComms solution comprises of both the Common Name of the group and the domain name part of the Distinguished Name. This information is sent to the Content Manager automatically and immediately, therefore populating the Groups page with the new group(s), and updating the Members count. By default, a new group is not made active, therefore is not visible in the Target Users screen of any Content until you manually make it active. This default can be changed by navigating to Management > General Settings > Click for additional settings > Make New Groups Active.

If Active Directory is not the primary source of data, SnapComms also offer other methods to import data from other sources.

All groups that have been discovered by the SnapComms Apps are displayed on the Groups page under the Users & Groups menu. To view them all, remove the Active filter applied to the Groups table. Only active groups are available for targeting when creating Content.


 

How Groups are manually created

There are four ways to manually create a group in SnapComms:

1. Import: You can import a CSV file using the Users & Groups Sync feature (additional license feature). More information on CSV Importing can be found here.

2. Create Group button: Alternatively, you can manually create a group by clicking on the Create Group button within the Groups page.

You may specify a name and a description for the new group. Then click on 'Create Group' to start adding Users.




You may add machines or users to your newly created group. Each type is identified by an icon representing whether they are a machine or an individual user.

3. Registration Alerts: Another alternative way of creating groups is by sending out Registration Alerts where Users can opt-in to receive communications. This creates a Group in the Content Manager, ready to use for targeting. Read through the following article for more details, Creating Registration Alerts.

4. Success Report: Finally groups can be created from a Success Report by filtering the report's table and adding Users to an existing or new group for targeting. Read through this article for more details, Creating a Target Group from a Success Report.

Note: Manually created groups are not automatically updated. Therefore when a user is no longer required in the group, you will need to manually remove them.
 

How to manage Groups

Manage your Group

Locate the group to manage by using the search and filtering options. Under the Actions column, click on Manage. This opens the Group Management window from where you can view and remove current group Users or add new Users.
Note: here "User" refers to either individual User or to Machines.

• To remove one or multiple Users from the Group, tick the box next to their User Name and use the Remove User button that appeared above the table
• To add one or multiple Users, click on the + Add Users button above the table to open a new window. There, tick the Users to add to the Group and click on Add Selected Users to proceed.

When managing and adding Users, the Type column identifies whether the User is an individual User or a Machine. An individual User is a person and can be individually targeted whereas a Machine refers to a device with the SnapComms App installed. When targeting a Machine, all Users logged in will receive the Content.
The Users table, like the Groups table, can be searched, filtered, and customized to help locate specific Users - refer to the How to find and export section to learn how.

Note:

• Automatically created groups should be managed outside of SnapComms and will be automatically updated the next time the group syncs. Any manual changes made in SnapComms will be overwritten by the group synchronization.
• Changes within Active Directory groups will appear in automatically created Groups once the Apps of users affected by the changes have synchronized with Active Directory. Change to the Group name in AD may result in duplicate groups being created in the Content Manager. It is recommended to mark the old group Disabled to avoid accidentally targeting an old group.

Group Statuses

In SnapComms Groups can be Active or Disabled. When Groups are no longer in use or required, they can also be deleted.

Active Groups
Manually created groups are saved as Active. Automatically created groups are added as Disabled by default. Only active groups are displayed and available for targeting when creating and publishing content.

By default, the Groups page applies a filter to only show Active Groups.

To make a Group Active manually, select the User using the tick box located next to their Group Name. Use the Activate button above the Groups table. You can activate one or multiple Groups at once on the same page.


 

Disabled Groups
By default, automatically created groups are added to the Groups page as Disabled. This default can be changed under General Settings (Management Menu) to add Groups automatically created as Active. Groups that are disabled cannot be used for targeting. 

Any Group can be manually disabled. 

To disable a user, select the User using the tick box located next to their User Name. Use the Disable button above the Users table. You can disable one or multiple users at once on the same page.

To re-activate the group(s), see here.

If any groups you expected to find in the Groups list are not present, there may be multiple reasons:

• The SnapComms App may be having connection issues to the Content Manager, or the user has not yet logged on since the SnapComms App was installed.
• If the group is new and has not previously been imported to SnapComms, the synchronization cycle may not have refreshed the Groups list yet.
• The table is filtered to show Active Groups and the group is Disabled.

Delete Groups

Groups can be deleted when they are no longer required in SnapComms. 

To delete a manually created group, select the Group using the tick box located next to their Group Name. Use the Delete button above the Groups table. You can delete one or multiple groups at once on the same page (up to 1000 groups/page).

Automatically created groups should be deleted from the Source outside of SnapComms or alternatively marked as Disabled. You can control what groups are to be excluded from being re-imported into SnapComms within the Windows App Profile and manually delete or disable the groups in SnapComms as and if required. Learn more about inclusion/exclusion here.

Manage Groups in bulk

Groups can be Activated, Disabled or Deleted in bulk.

• Filter or search the Groups list to display the Groups you wish to manage
• Adjust how many rows (groups) display in the table - the picker is located under the table.

• Select groups individually using the tick boxes next to their Group Name or use the bulk tick box located in the header section of the table to select all groups within that page

• Click on Activate, Disable or Delete as relevant

Note: It is not currently possible to select groups from multiple pages via the bulk tick box. To select more groups at once, select 1000/page. Repeat on the next pages as required if you need to manage more than 1000 groups.

How to find and export Groups

Search for Groups
Filters and search options within the Users page can help you locate a specific Group or Groups that share common information (Organizational Unit, activity status, Active Group Members count, etc.) or assist in identifying duplicates.

Filter and sort the Groups list
By default, the filter applied to the Groups list or table shows Active groups. Filtering is not remembered, if you navigate away or refresh the page, the default filtering applies again.
Filters that currently apply to the table display as a label above it. To remove applied filters, use the close button within the filter label.



To filter the Group list or table, locate columns that support filtering. They are identified by a gray funnel icon that appears orange when the column filter is applied to the table.

Not applied:

Applied:

The columns that support filtering are identified here.

By default, the table is sorted by Group Name ascending. The applied sorting shows as an orange arrow on the column header, up for ascending order (A-Z or 0-9) and down for descending order (Z-A or 9-0). 

To sort a column, simply click on the header. Once to sort ascending and a second time for descending. When navigating away from the Groups page or refreshing, the default sorting applies again (Group Name ascending).
 

Search the Groups list
There are 2 ways to search the table for specific Group or Group information. The General search, located above the table next to the Export as... button searches within the entire table and all columns. The column-specific search, identified by a magnifying glass on the column header, searches through this column only.

Using the search options you can identify duplicate groups. e.g. use the column-specific search on the Group Name. The table will display all groups that match the search query.

The same can be achieved using the General search to look into both Group Name and Comment columns at the same time. Note that it will also look through the other columns and display any matches found in other columns (Organization Unit, Domain Name, etc.).

Customize the Groups list
The Groups list table can be customized to display the Group information you need.

To customize the columns, locate the Customize Columns button above the table and click on it.
Each column displays a tooltip on text hover to learn more about it. Further definition of each column is available later in this article. 
To add a column to the Groups list table, simply tick the corresponding box. To remove a column from the table, untick the box. 

The customized view is remembered when navigating away from the Groups page or refreshing the page. To reset the view to the SnapComms default, click on Default at the bottom of the column customization drop-down. There you will also find the Advanced view button, to display our Advanced SnapComms default view.



Available columns:

Export options



To export, locate the Export as... button above the table. This drop-down has 1 option:

• Export filtered Groups: Exports all available columns data for the Groups filtered within the table. Includes columns that are not displayed within the table at the moment of export.

This export is downloaded as a comma-separated value file (.csv) and can be opened in a spreadsheet editing software (Microsoft Excel, Google Sheet, Apple Numbers etc.).

    
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For information on how users are added to Content Manager, click How users are added to Content Manager.
For information on how machines are added to Content Manager, click How machines are added to Content Manager.