What are Groups?

Groups are used to organize and logically segment devices in order to make viewing and managing device inventory easier. Groups are also the primary mechanism used to configure your devices - groups allow you to assign configuration profiles, applications, media, and attributes to devices en masse.

Organizing Groups

Groups are flexible and can be organized any way that suits your organization’s needs. Devices can belong to one or more groups. There is no limit to the number of groups you can create, nor the number of groups that a device can be a member of.

Groups are typically used to organize collections of devices that have common traits. For example, some common methods for grouping devices might be:

• By device type - ex. iOS vs. macOS
• By physical location - such as office (NYC HQ office, state (ex. New York), region (ex. Northeast), country (ex. United States), continent (North America), etc.
• By department - engineering, marketing, HR, etc.
• By employee role - field technicians, marketing specialists, sales reps, engineers, etc.
• By use-case - employee device, conference rooms, lab computers, kiosks, etc.

Since Groups are the main mechanism for controlling what configurations and applications devices receive, it is often helpful to segment devices into groups based on common sets of configuration requirements.

Group Organization Example

Let’s say your organization has three common use-cases for managing devices:

• Macs provided to employees for daily work
• iPads used as kiosks for retail stores
• iPads used for conference room scheduling/booking

Each of these use-cases will likely require a different set of configuration profiles, apps, etc.

Next, let’s say that your organization has three different locations where devices may be used:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Chicago

Each of these locations may also have a different set of configuration requirements, and it will make managing inventory easier when broken down by location.

Given the situation above, you might create the following groups:

• “Macs - Daily Use”
• “iPads - Kiosks”
• “iPad - Conference Rooms”
• “New York”
• “Los Angeles”
• “Chicago”

A managed iPad used for conference rooms in the New York office would get assigned to both the “iPad - Conference Rooms” group and the “New York” group. It would then receive the configurations and apps assigned to both of these groups.

Group Types

SimpleMDM supports two types of groups: Static and Dynamic. Both static and dynamic groups can have devices, configuration profiles, apps, and media assigned to them. However, there are a couple key differences. The most notable difference is how devices join the different group types.

Static Groups

With static groups, device memberships do not change unless some action is taken to assign or unassign devices. Devices can join static groups through the following mechanisms:

• manual assignment: an admin adds and removes devices from the group within the SimpleMDM interface.
• enrollment - “initial group assignment”: enrollments can be configured to add devices to specific groups automatically after a device enrolls into MDM.
• API: devices can be added and removed from static groups programmatically using the API.

Once a device has been added to a static group, it will remain in that group until a specific action is taken to remove it.

Creating Static Groups

To create a static group:

1. In the SimpleMDM admin interface, navigate to the Devices > Groups section.
2. Click the “+” symbol next to the Groups header at the top of the Groups list column.
3. Enter a name for the group in the “Name” field.
4. In the “Type” field, select “Static”.
5. [Optional] Check the “Auto Deploy SimpleMDM mobile app” option to automatically assign the SimpleMDM mobile app to the group and push it to devices. Note: This app is not required for SimpleMDM to function. It is only used for location tracking via the mobile app and for push messages.
6. [Optional] Check the “Track location via SimpleMDM mobile app” option to have SimpleMDM attempt to track device location via the SimpleMDM mobile app.
7. Click “Create” in the top-right corner of the screen to create the group.

Assigning Devices to Static Groups

Assign Devices via Groups page:

1. Navigate to the Groups page and click the name of the group in the Groups list.
2. Under the “Devices” tab of the Group, click into the search bar. This will display a list of devices that are available to assign.
3. Scroll the dropdown to find the device you want to assign, or start typing the device name to search.
   1. Quick tip: To search for devices using another attribute, such as name, serial number, IMEI, MAC address, UDID, or phone number, click the filter carrot in the search bar and change the attribute. Then type the search value into the search bar.
4. Click the checkbox or device name in the dropdown to add it to your group.
   1. Quick tip: If you are adding multiple devices at once, click the checkboxes - this will keep the search dropdown open to quickly add more devices. If you are only adding one device quickly, click the device name - this will close the dropdown immediately after adding the device.
5. After all devices have been added, click “Review” to review the assignment changes and save.

Dynamic Groups

Dynamic Groups allow admins to automatically group devices based on customizable filters. Admins can create the filters they want to use to determine whether or not a device belongs in a group, and SimpleMDM will automatically evaluate all devices against the filter criteria and update group assignments accordingly.

Dynamic groups are just like static groups, except that devices can become members of a dynamic group if they meet the conditions of the filters configured for the group. SimpleMDM will automatically update dynamic group membership as device state and/or filter criteria change.

Note: Dynamic groups do allow devices to be manually assigned as well, just like static groups. The instructions for this process are the same as static groups.

Creating Dynamic Groups

To create a dynamic group:

1. In the SimpleMDM admin interface, navigate to the Devices > Groups section.
2. Click the “+” symbol next to the Groups header at the top of the Groups list column.
3. Enter a name for the group in the “Name” field.
4. In the “Type” field, select “Dynamic”.
5. After selecting “Dynamic”, a section labeled “Include all devices” will appear. The filter criteria for dynamic groups is configured here. Configure the filters as needed.
6. Once the filters have been configured, click “Create”. After clicking “Create”, SimpleMDM will automatically determine which devices match the filter criteria and will add them to the group.

Dynamic Filters Explained

SimpleMDM supports filtering dynamic group membership based many different criteria. Each individual filter has four components: a subject, attribute, operator, and value. We explain each of these below.

Subject

The subject is the object that the filter relates to. The following subjects are currently supported:

• Devices
• Custom Attributes
• Installed Applications
• Static Groups

Attributes

The attribute is typically a property, field, or status relating to the subject. There are many different attributes available to filter on based on the subject selected.

• Devices: device attributes typically correspond to the fields listed under the Device Details page in the SimpleMDM interface. Examples are: device name, model, OS version, etc.
• Custom Attributes: the list of available attributes will be the same as the list of custom attributes that you have created in your account.
• Installed Applications: installed application attributes correspond to properties of apps installed on devices - for example, information that you would find under the “Apps” tab of the Device Details page.
• Static Groups: “name” is the only attribute currently supported for static groups. This allows filters to be created based on static group membership.

Operators

The operator defines how the value will be evaluated against the subject’s attribute. Different operators are available depending on the data type of the attribute. The available operators are:

• starts with
• null
• not null
• not in
• not equal to
• in
• equals
• ends with
• does not start with
• does not end with
• does not contain
• contains
• is greater than
• is greater than or equal to
• is less than
• is less than or equal to
• on
• not on
• before or on
• before
• after or on
• after

Values

The value is the data that is being evaluated or compared against the attribute for each device using the operator.

Creating A Filter

Filter Example

Let’s put together the pieces above to create an example filter. In this example, we want our dynamic group to include all devices that have Google Chrome installed. One way we might do this is:

[Subject] Installed Application [Attribute] Name [Operator] Contains [Value] Chrome

Once saved, this should create a group with all devices that have any app in their inventory with “Chrome” in the name.

Refining Filter Criteria For Optimal Results

The example above may be a quick and easy solution, but there are some potential gaps. For example, there may be devices in your fleet that have other apps with “Chrome” in the name. Additionally, sometimes the app name shown in installed app inventory for devices (returned by the MDM protocol) doesn’t match the exact name shown in the App Store (an example of this is Google Authenticator - this just appears as “Authenticator” in devices’ app inventory).

If we want to ensure we are excluding other apps and only including Google Chrome, we may be better off using something more specific - such as the app bundle identifier - to filter our devices. To do this, we’ll update our filter to:

[Subject] Installed Application [Attribute] Identifier [Operator] Equals [Value] com.google.Chrome

Creating Multiple Filters & Filter Groups

SimpleMDM supports the ability to create sets of filters and filter groups for more complex grouping needs.

• “Add Filter” button: this adds an additional filter to the set of filters.
• “Add Group” button: this adds a filter group to the set of filters. Filter Groups are used to combine groups of criteria to evaluate device membership against.
• “Clear Filters” button: this removes all filters from the dynamic group.
• Removing a single filter or filter group: click the trashcan button next to the filter or filter group.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are used to chain filters or filter groups together to evaluate device conditions against for membership. The available conjunctions are:

• AND
• OR
• NAND (”Not and”)
• NOR (”Not or”)

Using Conjunctions & Filter Groups

Let’s walk through an example of how conjunctions and filter groups might be used. Let’s say our organization has a mix of device types and use-cases, and we want to create a group that returns all iPhones and MacBook Pros that are not specifically on the latest version (18.2 and 15.2 respectively, in this example). We can achieve this with the following filter configuration:

Conjunction: OR

Filter Group 1:

[Subject] Devices [Attribute] Device Family [Operator] Equals [Value] iPhone

AND

[Subject] Devices [Attribute] OS Version [Operator] Not equal to [Value] 18.2

OR

Filter Group 2:

[Subject] Devices [Attribute] Device Family [Operator] Equals [Value] MacBook Pro

AND

[Subject] Devices [Attribute] OS Version [Operator] Not equal to [Value] 15.2

This filter will return all iPhones and MacBook Pros that are not running iOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2.

Quick Tip: If you are familiar with SQL, the logic of the filter queries will function similar to SQL.

Navigating Groups List

The Groups interface makes it easy to see all of your groups at once and quickly navigate between them.

Viewing Groups

To view all groups, click Devices > Groups in the left-side menu. The Groups column will display all groups in the account.

To view a specific group, click the group name in the list. This will display the contents of the group on the right side of the page for viewing and editing.

Quick Tip: The Groups List column can be collapsed and expanded to provide more screen real estate for viewing the selected group. Click the double-arrow button to collapse or expand the Groups List column.

The Groups list shows the group name and icons to indicate the type of group (dynamic vs. static) as well as any objects assigned to the group, including devices, profiles, apps, and media, in that order. This makes it easy to quickly see an overview how many objects belong to each group.

Searching & Filtering Groups List

The Groups List can be searched and filtered to quickly find specific groups.

To filter the Groups List by group type, click the dropdown next to the search bar and select one of “All”, “Static”, or “Dynamic”.

The Groups search bar can be used to search for groups by name, or to search for all groups with specific objects assigned. The Groups search options currently include:

• Group Name
• App Bundle ID
• App Name
• Device Name
• Device SN
• Device UDID
• Media Name
• Profile Name
• Profile Type

Groups Search Examples

Example #1: See all groups that a specific device is assigned to

1. Click the filter icon in the Groups search bar and select “Device SN”.
2. Enter the device serial number in the search bar.

Example #2: See all groups with the Google Chrome app assigned

1. Click the filter icon in the Groups search bar and select “App Bundle ID”
2. Type “com.google.Chrome” into the search bar.

Example #3: See all groups with a Restrictions profile assigned

1. Click the filter icon in the Groups search bar and select “Profile Type”
2. Type “Restrictions” into the search bar.

Recommended Reading for Groups:

• Groups - Managing Device Assignments
• Groups - Managing Profile Assignments
• Groups - Managing App Assignments
• Groups - Group Settings & Actions