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Question

How do you organize your Categorizes, etc.?

  • February 21, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 44 views
monosodium
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I am just wondering how you all organize your categories as there is so much overlap between the different apps and categories. Because of this overlap I find it hard to create a concise categories list that covers all the bases. For example, I currently have categories that cater more to the Packages section than Policies. So I have categories like "Adobe Products" and "Operating System". This works fine for categorizing packages in Casper Admin, but kind of fails in other areas.

I would be interested to hear any other ways that you organize the JSS as I am still fairly new to this and am finding things not as organized as I would like.

    2 replies

    T
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    • tuinte
    • Valued Contributor
    • February 25, 2013

    I, too, had the instinct to create an Adobe category. Then I created Internet Browsers & Plugins category. That's where it fell apart.

    The overlapping categories come from an inconsistency in Category naming. In the example above, I created one category based on Developer and the other on Package type or function. Adobe Flash Player, for example, is both an Adobe product and an internet plugin. Where do I put it? And it starts to make less and less sense the more packages and categories there are.

    So, pick your one criteria for Categories. You can go with Developer and create Adobe, Microsoft, Mozilla, etc. categories and throw in your packages as appropriate. I didn't go with Developer because we use Self Service and users just wouldn't know which developer to look under to find what they're looking for. We went with package type/function.

    Backup (CrashPlan)
    Creative Applications (CS6, Quark, iLife, etc)
    Font Management (FAP)
    FTP Clients Internet Browsers & Plugins
    Media Apps & Plugins (VLC, Flip4Mac, etc)
    OS X
    Printers & Drivers
    Productivity (Office, iWork, Acrobat, etc)
    etc
    etc

    I also have a Setup category for those little packages that help at imaging time, and a couple of others.

    No need to follow mine - ultimately it's whatever works - but if you're scratching your head over which category to put a package into because it seems to fit two or three, it's likely your category names aren't based on the same variable.

    Michael

    J
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    • jarednichols
    • Valued Contributor
    • February 25, 2013

    Here's what I've got:

    - Internet - Includes browsers and plugins (e.g. Chrome, Flash Player, Flip4Mac)
    - Maintenance - Mostly scripts. Contains things like my "Make User Admin" and "Software Update Prompt" scripts
    - Operating Systems - Compiled - Contains Base OS images
    - Operating Systems - Pre-compiled - Contains OS install bits directly from Apple. (e.g. InstallESD.dmg)
    - Productivity - Includes things like our telepresence software, Office, Sametime
    - Runtime Environments - Mostly Java
    - Security - Things like McAfee and Entrust
    - System Configuration - Scripts mostly, a few others. Things like scripts that assign NTP and Software Update servers, lay down dummy packages for particular configurations, set time zone etc.
    - User Environment - Things that directly impact the user experience such as default bookmarks and Dock layout
    - Utilities - Things like Casper Remote for deployment out to our techs
    - Z-Old Packages - A waiting room for packages that belong to policies living in Z-Old Policies (which are disabled). Waiting for me to clean them out/as a safety for something that superceds it.

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