Contents

Using tags to set the coverage for a question - tutorial

Summary

A quick tutorial on using predefined tags when setting the coverage for a question.

Tachyon enables Coverage tag properties to be created and set on Tachyon client devices, which can then be used when setting the coverage for a question. The basic workflow is:

  1. A Tachyon Custom Properties Administrator defines the name of a Coverage tag and one or more associated values. See Adding properties - tutorial for more details on this step.
  2. Actioners with permissions to tag instructions (from the Tachyon Core product pack) run actions that use the defined properties and values and assign them to particular Tachyon client devices. See Actions to set tags - tutorial for more details on this step.
  3. Questioners can then use the Tags parameter, when defining the coverage for a question, to constrain the coverage to particular properties and values thereby targeting particular Tachyon client devices.

This page provides a quick tutorial on how to perform step 3.

On this page:

Using tags in question coverage

The example

On the Actions to set tags - tutorial page we set the tags for the devices belonging to a number of departments in our ACME organization. Now we're going to extend the example to deal with a particular scenario and show how the tags can be used when defining the coverage for a question.

In our environment we've just rolled out a software package for a product called ACMEFinance, this application is used by a number of departments - but we've realized that the Finance department use some extra features of the application that requires a special license. So we urgently want to find all the devices in the Finance department that have the ACMEFinance software installed and apply the special license to just those devices.

To find the devices we want to treat we will ask the question What versions of <appname> are installed?.

Using coverage tags

For our example the user TCNActioner01, with the Tachyon global actioner role, is going to run the question to locate any ACMEFinance installations on the Finance department devices. The animation opposite illustrates the following steps:

  1. TCNActioner01 types Which versions into the Explorer field and then selects What versions of <appname> are installed?  from the list of matching questions
  2. Once the question is loaded they set the <appname> inline parameter to ACMEFinance, the application they want to track down
  3. They then click on the Edit link to expand the Parameters rollout, click on Coverage to expand that heading and then on Tags to display the coverage tags controls
  4. They select Department from the Select key dropdown list
  5. Then they select Finance from the Select value dropdown list (populated when Department was selected) and click Set to save the coverage to the question
  6. Having set the coverage they then click Ask this question, which will ask the question of just those devices with the selected tag set
  7. The responses in our example shows that just one of the connected finance devices has the ACMEFinance software

We can now target the ACME-WIN1001.acme.local device outside of Tachyon with the special license update.

In this tagging example we've seen how Extended Properties administrators define the properties that can be used for tagging, as described in Adding properties - tutorial. We've seen in turn how those tags can be set on Tachyon client devices by an actioner, as described in Actions to set tags - tutorial. Finally on this page we've seen how those tags can be used to define the coverage for a question and help to target otherwise unassociated devices simply and effectively.