Create Group Generator (Freeform)

SUMMARY Groups (folders) in Freeform blueprints organize resources. Group generators (folders with properties) automatically create and delete groups based on specified conditions.

1. From the blueprint, navigate to Staged > Resource Management > Blueprint Resources.

   The group directory appears on the left. You can nest group generators inside any group.

   
2. Click the group where you want to put the new group generator, then click Create (right-side) and select Group Generator.

   The name of the group you selected appears in the immutable Parent field.

3. Enter a group generator name, then specify a scope based on how you want your groups to be created and managed.
   For example, to create one group for every internal system, use the following scope:

   This scope tells the graph database to find all internal systems and create a group for each one of them; then assign the name of the system to each group. If you subsequently delete a system, the group created for that system is also deleted. Conversely, if you create a system after this group generator is created, a group for that system is automatically created.

   

   You can click the Open in Graph Explorer button to open a new tab that shows the groups that will be created based on the current topology. In our example, the topology includes 3 internal systems, and 3 groups will be created, as expected.

   
4. Back in the Create Group Generator dialog, click Create to create the group generator and return to the Blueprint Resources view.

   Groups will be created and deleted dynamically based on your specified conditions.

   In our example, the group generator named system was created inside the Root folder, and it automatically created 3 groups, one for each of the systems in the topology. To see the resources in a group, click the name of the group. We haven't put any resources into the group we just created, so the resource table is empty.