Categories Best Practices

[eddiel0w]

Thinking of revamping my current Categories in the JSS. Grouping my policies and packages is becoming tougher. Can someone share some best practices and or what works well for you?

[AVmcclint]

I've boiled ours down to:
- Adobe (Flash, Shockwave, Reader)
- Microsoft (Office updates, separate company template files for Office 2011 and 2016, Silverlight updates)
- OS (OS upgrades, updates and security patches)
- Browsers (Safari updates, Firefox, Chrome...)
- Core Build (apps that are present in all configurations go here)
- Utilities (things like Malwarebytes, coconut battery, Spectacle, VLC...)
- Self Help Tools (mostly scripts that purge caches or mount company drives, MS Office database repair, Repair permissions...)
- Dev apps (JDKs, XCode, Eclipse, Git, XQuartz...)
- Printers (install drivers and specific printers)
- WebEx

It still has room for improvement but it's better than it was when I got here.

[Chris_Hafner]

It's all situational of course. Ours are listed by priority:

OS
OS Updates -Includes any management items or OS level plugins
Printer Drivers
Productivity Software
Productivity Software Updates
Multimedia
Multimedia Updates
Browsers
Plugins
Standard (My catchall priority setting for the following categories) •Arts (General, no multimedia apps) • Academic Support • Backup • File Transfer • Interactive Demonstration • ITS (For specific IT processes and or, IT directed maintenance) • Maintenance (For end user maintenance processes) • Math • Science • Video Conferencing • Virtualization
Standard Updates File Packages
Lab Specific Apps
Lab Specific App Updates
Uninstaller's
AntiVirus/Security

Outside of the categories organized by priority we have:
printers •Printers - Faculty •Printers - Office •Printers - PaperCut (Experimental) •Printers - Personal •Printers - Student
scripts

I think that's all of them...

[davidacland]

We've done it loads of different ways. I now normally just go for 4 or 5 with things like "Settings" and "Software".

We could really do with a list of checkboxes per category to specify where they apply, i.e. Self Service, Packages, Scripts, Policies, Configuration Profiles.

A category that works for area of the JSS, isn't necessarily ideal for the others.