The Group Control string is used to select the groups of Slide-in Devices to which subsequent configuration changes will be made. It can be changed by changing the contents of the "Group Control String" text entry box on the main screen of the Focal Point application, or by changing the contents of the MIB variable cpsGroupCtrl.0 .

The Group Control String is composed of the same keywords that are found in the Device Group Strings of individual slide-in devices.

The simplest case is for each Slide-in Device to have one keyword in its Device Group String (e.g. some with "sales", some with "manufacturing" and others with "executive"), and for one of these keywords to be entered into the Group Control String in order to select that group for editing.

To exert even greater control over the application of configuration changes, it is possible to assign multiple keywords to each Device Group String . This simply means that the device is a member of more than one group. It is also possible to assign multiple keywords to the Group Control String. If no advanced operators (described below) are used, this has the effect of causing the changes to be applied to every device that is in one or more of the specified groups.

Additionally, the Group Control String supports several advanced matching operations in order to allow even more complex cases.

All operators in the Group Control String must be satisfied by the Device Group String of a slide-in device for a match to occur. If any operator fails, no configuration changes are applied. The order in which keywords appear in the Group Control String makes no difference. There is no "precedence" of operators.

• '.' is the "Pick-One" operator.

  Example: ".acct .eng .mfg"

  When "Pick-One" operators are present in the Group Control String, then one or more of the keywords so marked must appear in the Device Group String of the slide-in device for configuration changes to be allowed.

  "Pick-One" is the default operation. (i.e. the Group Control String ".acct .eng .mfg" is precisely equivalent to the Group Control String "acct eng mfg".)

• '-' or '!' is the "Prohibited" operator.

  Example: "!acct -eng !mfg"

  When "Prohibited" operators are present in the Group Control String, then if any of the keywords so marked appears in the Device Group String of the slide-in device, then no configuration changes are applied.

• '+' is the "Required" operator.

  Example: "+acct +eng +mfg"

  When "Required" operators are present in the Group Control String, then all of the keywords so marked must appear in the Device Group String of the slide-in device for configuration changes to be allowed.

• '*' is a Wildcard that matches zero or more characters.

Example: A system administrator has defined the following group keywords:

• "hq" = Headquarters building

• "england" = London office

• "mfg" = Manufacturing

• "engprod" = Engineering production

• "engtest" = Engineering test

If we wanted a Group Control String that means "Every device in the headquarters building that serves manufacturing or engineering," we could enter any of the following: (The third example works only if it can be assumed that no Device Group String has both "england" and "hq" in it.)

• "+hq .mfg .eng* !england"

• "+hq .mfg .engtest .engprod"

• "+hq .mfg .eng*"

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