Smart Groups

[wingoj]

I would like to know if you can move a computer from one smart group to another without having to reimage the device.  We have setup smart groups that pickup the computer from pre-stage but once they are in the groups we can move them to a different smart group.

[scottb]

By definition, Smart Groups membership are controlled by the criteria.  Static Groups are the ones that you can manually change the membership with criteria on the fly...

[wingoj]

Thanks for the info.  I kind of figured that out but it would be nice to be able to select a trigger to move to a different group without having to make a new static group when replacing computer that are assigned.

[scottb]

Then use Smart groups...

[sdagley]

@wingoj You may not be understanding the distinction between Smart Groups and Static Groups. As @scottb stated, Smart Group membership is defined by specific criteria that may or may not apply to an individual computer and the membership in the group is dynamic with a computer's match for that criteria re-evaluated every time a computer submits an inventory. If you're looking to have a group that a computer is a member of all of the time after it is assigned then a Static Group may be more appropriate (and as the name implies its membership doesn't change unless you take an action to modify it, or make a computer unmanaged).

[wingoj]

It's not that I don't understand smart groups.  We do that well.  When we enroll a device it gets put into a smart group.  That group takes care of configs and policy's.  Now what has happened is if one of the devices goes bad in that smart group the only way to get another device into the smart group it to enroll it.  We have spares device that we can swap out, just did not want to reimage them just to get them in the group.  I get what you mean about static groups.  Looks like I need both types for the same devices.

[mm2270]

If you create either a Text Field or Pop up Menu style Extension Attribute, you can flip the setting for an individual machine or machines in the Jamf Pro console, and have that criteria be the basis for a Smart Group, which would mean you can kinda sorta move a device into a Smart Group on demand. It's still technically just a Smart Computer Group because it would be looking for that criteria item to be a certain value that you define when setting up the group, but it would give you a method of making sure a machine lands into that group.

The only thing to keep in mind is that it won't dynamically fall out of that group at a later time unless you take some action on it, like removing the pop up menu or text field value from that device.