Checkpoints

There’s not much danger lurking as far as collections are concerned. Any potential problems lie mostly in the setup of the collection. For example, remember that the most useful collections are those based on queries. Query-based membership rules allow the collection to be updated on a regular schedule that you define, ensuring that the collection will be kept up-to-date. However, this regular updating won’t take place unless you enable that option in the Membership Rules tab of the Collection Properties window. Since this option isn’t enabled by default, it can be easily missed.

Another “gotcha” comes through the SMS Administrator Console. To view the members in a collection, you expand the Collections folder and select the collection entry. Remember that the collection members are not updated in the console automatically. After Collection Evaluator reevaluates the collections’ memberships, you still need to refresh the console by right-clicking the Collections folder and choosing Refresh from the context menu. And if you force an update to one or all of the collections, you still need to refresh the console—an update does not also refresh.