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Master Login
When viewing data, Dashboard users can select programs individually or as groups in General Criteria. Because the list of programs to select from can be overwhelming, it makes sense to define Program groups. Grouping programs is a powerful way to speed up Dashboard criteria selection.
You may wish to group programs by function (e.g., Word Processing, HelpDesk, General System) or by categories. For example
Productivity Group: How often and how much is the top productivity software being used? Who's using it? For example, a Shipping department that relies heavily on Excel spreadsheets might need a program group that includes all versions and instances of MS Excel. An Engineering department might want to group all code editors and compilers as one group. The Marketing group may select all versions of MS PowerPoint and Word as part of its productivity group.
Unacceptable Group: How much company time is being spent playing mine-sweeper or solitaire? Most managers don't know the name of every game out there and don't have the time to sift through individual program usage. You can help them by grouping applications that are strictly for entertainment. In addition to games, you might include media players and other distractions from productivity.
To create a program group:
Open the Management
tool and select the Program Groups
folder. Right-click in the right pane and select New
from the pop-up menu. The Program Group window appears for "New Group."
In the New Group window, type a Group Name (up to 20 characters including spaces).
In the Description field, type a description for the group.
In the Group Type field, select
Specific Programs. A list of all Available Programs appears in the left
pane of the Program Group window. Each program has a Program Name (which
can be edited), an Executable Name, and may have a Description.
Scroll through the Available Programs list, or type the first letter of a program name to find the desired program. For example, type V to jump to "vb6" (Visual Basic).
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Click a column heading to sort programs alphabetically by that column. Sorting by Description makes it easier to find versions of Notepad, for example. Hold down the Shift key and click the Executable Name column head to sort by Description AND Executable Name. |
Select a program. Use the Shift and Control keys to select multiple programs.
Click the > button (or double-click) to send all highlighted programs to the right-hand Selected Programs list. (The >> button sends all programs in the available list to the selected list, but the list may be too long for the Dashboard to accomplish this.)
Click the < button to return highlighted programs in the Selected Programs list back to the Available Programs list. Click << to return all programs back to the Available Programs list.
When all the programs you want are in the Selected Programs list, click Save and Close on the toolbar. The window closes and the new group appears in the right pane of the Dashboard.
To use Program Groups Management:
Create a new program group by clicking New on the toolbar (or right-click > New).
Change a group's programs, name, or description. Right-click on the group and select Edit.
Delete a selected program group by clicking Delete on the toolbar (or right-click > Delete).
