Forum GLPI-Project

doors

Member

Registered: 2008-04-01

Posts: 6

What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

I am new to GLPI. I am not clear with the terms "groups" and "entities". Could someone explain what it is all about?

baud

Member

Registered: 2008-04-02

Posts: 4

Re: What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

Entities are like different companies, like if you have a support company and you are assisting 12 different companies, you could track the equipment and tickets for those 12 different companies, with 12 different entities. At least thats how I understand it. If this is correct then I think I might add it to the wiki, because its a little vague (unclear) about that.
A group, using the previous example, would be something like "the hardware team" and "the network repair team", and those groups could cover different entities.
I hope this makes sense and answers your question.
have a good day!

geesus

Member

From: germany

Registered: 2008-04-02

Posts: 4

Re: What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

thats how i understood it too.
I'm using entities for the different locations of our company and the location dropdown for differant departments and rooms.
But i've installed glpi/ocs a few days ago and we are only testing the system in a few departments, so i'm glad for every hint and suggestion how to use it best.

doors

Member

Registered: 2008-04-01

Posts: 6

Re: What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

In my company I have many departments and these departments have organizational units in Active Directory. How can I use these Organizational Units to manage what certain users assigned to a organizational unit can see or edit?

yvesdm

Member

Registered: 2007-06-27

Posts: 132

Re: What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

Entities are like different companies, like if you have a support company and you are assisting 12 different companies, you could track the equipment and tickets for those 12 different companies, with 12 different entities. At least thats how I understand it. If this is correct then I think I might add it to the wiki, because its a little vague (unclear) about that.
A group, using the previous example, would be something like "the hardware team" and "the network repair team", and those groups could cover different entities.
I hope this makes sense and answers your question.
have a good day!

Yes, that's the way we want to use it, but there is one thing giving us lots of trouble.
Entities are completely seperate, that's ok, but so are the groups, and that's the problem in my scenario.
We've got about 40 entities in our public service, and have support teams(groups of persons) supporting those 40 entities.
For example "cisco support team" should give support for all the entities, and there is the problem!
A "group" also belongs to an entity and can not be recursive.
When you create a group in the root entity it only belongs to the root entity, not to all the entities below it. 
Users on the other hand can be recursive.

For the moment we use glpi this way:
All computers are automatically assigned to the correct entity by rules
Users log in through AD authentication.
We assign users (only local admins and technicians) manually to the correct group after the first time they logged in and technicians are given a different profile then 'normal' users. I wrote a little script running every hour to set every user recursive automatically to overcome the group limit we're struggling.

Kind regards
Yves

wawa

GLPI-DEV

From: Montpellier / France

Registered: 2006-07-03

Posts: 6,019

Website

Re: What are "Groups" and "Entities"?

Yes, that's the way we want to use it, but there is one thing giving us lots of trouble.
Entities are completely seperate, that's ok, but so are the groups, and that's the problem in my scenario.
We've got about 40 entities in our public service, and have support teams(groups of persons) supporting those 40 entities.
For example "cisco support team" should give support for all the entities, and there is the problem!
A "group" also belongs to an entity and can not be recursive.

Yes we know about it,
Groups won't be recursive in the 0.71, it's a big work but we know we have to do it