Table of Contents (Start)

Object Groups

The Object Groups page enables you to manage the object groups that segment the enabled, visible objects for reports and alerts. You should outline your object groups to best suit your report requirements. Object groups have no effect on how objects are stored. If you plan your implementation appropriately, object group membership rules enable you to automatically assign objects to object groups. You can manually pin (add) objects to object groups.

To access the Object Groups page from the navigation bar, click the Devices menu, select Grouping, and then select Object Groups.

images/download/attachments/163972753/objectgroups-version-1-modificationdate-1693242595934-api-v2.png

Object Group Hierarchy

The object group hierarchy appears on the left. The hierarchy is two levels; object classes and object groups. First level object classes enable you to organize the second level object groups. Each object class is a logical group of object groups. You pin (add) objects into the second level object groups. Check boxes enable you to simultaneously manage the metadata values, drag and drop, and delete multiple object groups.

- Click to expand the object group hierarchy.
Click Add.
- Select Class to add a first level object class under which you can add object groups.
- Select Group to add a second level object group into which you can add objects.
- Click to edit the values for the metadata attributes you want to associate with the object group. See the Manage Metadata Values section below.
- Click to edit the object class name or the object group name.
Drag and drop object groups to different classes in the hierarchy.

Manage Metadata Values

The images/download/attachments/163972753/metadata-version-1-modificationdate-1693242595921-api-v2.png in the object group hierarchy Actions column provides access to the Edit Metadata pop-up that enables you to manage the values for the metadata attributes you want to associate with the object group. The Metadata Schema page enables you to manage metadata attributes.

Click in the Actions column to display the Edit Metadata pop-up.
Click to make the Values field editable.
In the Values field, enter the value for the attribute with the applicable attribute type specific format.
- Date/Time: Must have a valid date and time format and can use natural language processing such as; 3 Thursdays ago at 5pm.
- Integer: Type: Value must be numeric.
- IP Address: Must use one of the following formats.
  - IPv4: for example, 10.1.1.100 or 172.16.254.1
  - IPv6: supports Zero Suppression format. For example, 2001:db8::1234::567:8:1 or 2601::0800:200c:417a
- Latitude and Longitude: Must have valid coordinates that are decimal values: -90.00 to 90.00 values for Latitude and -180.00 to 180.00 for Longitude
- MAC Address: Must use the following format: 0A:00:27:00:00:00
- Text (Validated): Supports up to 1024 UTF-16 characters including PCRE regex that uses preg-match (perform a regular expression match) to validate the regular expression you enter against the attribute definition from the Metadata Schema page.
- Text: Supports up to 65K UTF-16 varchar characters.
- URL: Complete the following fields:
  - Link Display Text: Enter the text to display in reports as the link caption.
  - URL: Enter the URL. Must have FQDN validation, supports username prefix, ports, protocol AND ?/& for HTTP GET variables, and optional additional PCRE regex for validation, and must be fewer than 255 characters.
Click Update to save the value.

Object Group Membership Rules

Click on an object group in the hierarchy to display the object group membership rules and the list of objects that are members of the group on the right. Membership rules enable you to automatically add objects to the object group. Rules are case sensitive and you can use Perl regular expressions to create rules.

Click Add Rule or to display the Add/Edit Object Group Membership Rule pop-up.
Click the Device Group drop-down and select a device group/device type.
In the Object Name field, enter the object name trigger.

Example: Enter Gig to add objects with Gig in the name to the object group.
In the Description field, enter the object description trigger.

Example: Enter WAN to add all objects with WAN in the description to the object group.
Click the Plugin drop-down and select a plugin.
Click the Object Type drop-down and select an object type.
Click the Object Subtype drop-down and select an object subtype.
Click the Metadata Namespace drop-down to choose the metadata namespace and create rules with Metadata information. Once the namespace is selected, Metadata Attribute field becomes available. Choose the metadata attribute from the drop-down. Upon selecting the Metadata Attribute, Metadata Value field becomes available. Enter a value in the Metadata Value field.
Click Save to save the rule criteria.
Repeat these steps to add additional rules to use the OR Boolean.
Select the check box for each rule to copy, click , and select Copy Rules to make a copy of the rules you select.
Click Apply Rules to add the objects that meet the rule criteria to the object group.

The standard quantifiers in regular expressions (regex) are greedy, meaning they match as much as they can, only giving back as necessary to match the remainder of the regex. By using a lazy quantifier, the expression tries the minimal match first. You are advised to use lazy quantifier.

Object Group Membership

The Membership section displays the objects that are members of the object group. When you pin an object to an object group, rules do not affect the object's membership and you must manually unpin the object to remove its membership. When a rule adds an object to an object group, if you change the rule, the objects that were added by the rule can automatically be removed from the object group.

- Indicates the object is a member that was pinned to the object group.
– Indicates the object is a member that was added by an object group membership rule.

Membership Management

The Pin Objects button enables you to pin objects to the object group and images/download/attachments/163972753/gear-version-1-modificationdate-1693242595929-api-v2.png enables you to pin or unpin objects that are members of the group.

Click Pin Objects to display the Pin Objects pop-up.
1. Click the Select Device drop-down and select a device to display its objects.
2. Select the check box for each object to pin to the object group.
3. Click Pin to Group to pin the objects you select to the object group.
In the Membership list, select the check box for each object to pin to the object group, click , and select Pin Objects to pin the objects you select to the object group.
Select the check box for each object to unpin from the object group, click , and select Unpin Objects to unpin the objects you select from the object group. If you pin an object that was added by a rule, when you unpin the object it is removed from the membership list. If you click Apply Rule the object appears in the list again.
In the Device Name column, click on a device name to display a link to the Device Summary and links to applicable report templates. For details, please refer to section Device Summary in SevOne NMS User Guide.
In the Object Name column, click on an object name to display a link to the Object Summary and links to applicable report templates. For details, please refer to section Object Summary in SevOne NMS User Guide.