|Altiris Solution SDK|
The main purpose of Notification Server (NS) is to allow system administrators to manage business resources. Notification Server lets users manage these resources automatically, wherever possible. One tool within NS that aids in this automatic resource management is the NS filter (or resource filter). Filters allow for a system administrator to group and categorize resources into Resource Targets based on data in resource data classes.
A filter works like a “where” clause in a SQL statement, filtering out entries that do not match a filter criterion. Filters are self-updating. This means that adding and removing resource data in NS will change the set of resources that fit a given filter, just as adding data to a SQL table could change the results retrieved by the same query.
A resource that matches a given filter, or that will not be removed from a result set by applying the filter, is said to be “in” the filter (because it is in the filter’s result set of resources).
NS 6 collections are replaced in NS 7 by filters. Although collections will still work in NS 7, they are deprecated and should be replaced by filters to take full advantage of NS 7 functionality.
Filters are used in two main ways:
To manage filters within the Symantec Management Console, click the Manage toolbar button and select the Filters menu item. The filter tree that is loaded provides a context menu where a user can open a filter to view or edit the filter definition and view the filter membership, import/export filters as NS Item XML, secure filters, view filter properties, and create new filters.
Figure 1: Filter Management page
The filter editor page used for editing new and existing filters allows the user to edit the query on which the filter is based. The user can do this by using visual controls and object-modeling database tables and fields rather than directly entering SQL code. This allows users to create and edit filters without requiring the user to be proficient at SQL.
Figure 2: Filter Editor page
You should define filters using the filter editor in the Console. A filter that you create in the Console can be exported as XML using the context menu on the filter tree. Once exported, you can included the filter in a solution configuration XML file to make it available whenever the solution is installed. A Visual Studio code snippet included with the Solution SDK will help you include the filter query with the solution configuration XML files.
Important! This is the preferred method for creating filter XML for inclusion with a solution. Symantec recommends that you not attempt to create a filter configuration XML item out of nothing.