View - Deployments

• Create Deployment
• Deployment Targets
• Deployment Payloads
• Deployment Options
• Deployment Summary
• Deployment Drafts
• Deployments Targeting LDAP Groups

Create Deployment

What

The creation of a new deployment connects one or more payloads with one or more devices/groups. You can also use deployments to create exclusions on devices or groups.

When/Why

Deployments may be quite straightforward.  It may be as simple as "I need to deploy Adobe Photoshop to each device which owns a license".  But, it may be more complex, such as "I need to deploy Adobe Photoshop to all devices in our Production group, but not to any manager's device."  In the first instance, our deployment will probably pick a manual group or individual machines as the endpoints.  In the second instance, we might target a group for "Production", but add an exclusion for and devices in the Managers smart group.  Deployments can even target LDAP OUs as well.

How

To create a new deployment, select the plus ( ) in the top right.

Then give the deployment a name in the top left.  it is important to name the deployments appropriately so that you can filter for them later.

We'll discuss each of the tabs in this view in the below linked articles.

Deployment Targets

What

The Targets of a deployment are the endpoints that we'll define for deploying to.  Targets allows us to choose individual devices, groups, smart groups and LDAP sources for our deployment.  Targets also allows us to avoid deploying to certain devices or groups as well.

When/Why

We'll want to define here the targets and exclusions:

Targets - What you want to receive  Groups - Static, Smart Groups, and LDAP OUs to include   Devices - Specific devices to include
Exclusions - What you don't want to receive Groups - Static, Smart Groups and LDAP OUs to exclude Devices - Specific devices to exclude

If left blank, the deployment can be saved, but without targets it won't send payloads anywhere.  This may be nice for archival purposes.

How

1. From the Targets tab.
2. Select devices you want to get a payload(s). Either groups or individual devices
3. (optional) Select exceptions, groups or devices you do not want to receive any payload(s)
4. Save your work to finish later or next to finish creating your deployment

Deployment Payloads

What

In the Payloads tab, we'll choose all of the payload(s) we want to include in this deployment.  That is, items, such as software you want to deploy.  This can be one item, many items, or even nothing.

When/Why

Of course the point of a deployment is to deploy something, so we'll pick payloads we want in this view.  Note that the list of payloads can always be amended.  Additions will be installations, and removals of payloads will be uninstalls (based on verification settings).

How

1. Press the plus () in the top right or "Add Payloads" button in the center
2. Select one or many payloads
3. You may delete them with the x ()
4. Select Save to continue later or next to finish the deployment

Deployment Options

What

The Options tab allows you set the "rules" for the installation, such as the timing and the license assignment type for instance.  These settings vary by type of payload

When/Why

For the most basic type of installations (an iOS VPP app for instance), we may not change anything at all on this tab.  But, if we are doing a Windows MSI deployment scheduled for Friday night after 5PM, then we might set several different timing options in this tab.

How

1. Select Install type
   1. Direct (installs automatically)
   2. kiosk (Shows in a list of installs for customer to install)
2. (optional) Select Timing, if no times are selected, FileWave will download and install as soon as it can
3. (Optional - VPP only) Select License distribution
   1. Device
   2. User

Deployment Summary

What

The Deployments Summary tab shows you the effective action that your deployment will perform.

When/Why

It is very important to review this tab to make sure that at minimum the number of devices being impacted makes sense.  This is your opportunity to sanity-check your settings before you update the model and commit your changes.

How

Note that no actions can be taken directly on the summary tab, but it gives you to overview to evaluate your deployment:

The tab shows the number of endpoints impacted, and the overall size of the deployment.  Note that an explicit exclusion wins over an inclusion. (e.g. a device is in a group that has a payload assigned, but that device is also explicitly exluded means that that endpoint will NOT have the payload(s) installed.)

Deployment Drafts

What

When you create a deployment in FileWave Anywhere, an unfinished deployment may appear as a Deployment draft on the Deployments page.

When/Why

Deployment drafts protect work that you have started but not finished. If you close the browser, move to another task, or leave the deployment before saving it, FileWave Anywhere can keep the draft so you can return to it later.

Drafts are stored for the user and browser that created them. For example, a draft created in Chrome will not appear if the same administrator signs in from Firefox.

How

Deployment drafts appear on the Deployments page. To continue a draft, click its name or use the ... menu and choose Edit. To discard it, use the same menu and choose Delete.

If you click Cancel while editing a draft, FileWave Anywhere asks whether to keep the draft for later or delete it now.

Deployments Targeting LDAP Groups

What

The FileWave WebAdmin has the capability to directly target LDAP OUs when defining a deployment.  This is a significant improvement over previous FileWave versions which required special smart groups to be built for this purpose.

When/Why

We will likely want to use this feature whenever we have something to deploy to a particular group of devices, and those devices all exist in an OU we can reference.  Note: Using Directory structure to deploy content is perfectly viable, but ONLY if the data in the directory itself is reliable.

How

To target (or exclude) an LDAP OU in a deployment, target it in a very similar fashion to how we target a smart group.  Example shown below: