How To: Identify Similar Groups in the Directory

Applies To:

GroupID 10 – Self-Service

Business Scenario:

As your organization grows, so does your directory. And there comes a point where you continue to provision new groups without knowing that similar groups have been created previously to serve the same purpose.

This implies a situation where almost identical groups exist in the directory; leading to redundancy and group glut.

We would like to identify similar groups in the directory as a step towards purging redundancy and keeping the directory clean.

Solution:

GroupID enables you to compare groups for similarity on the basis of:

• Group type
• Membership

Take an example of a distribution group (Group A) that has 3 members; A1, A2, and A3. GroupID reads the membership of distribution groups in the directory to fetch groups that have the same members as Group A; then displays these similar groups in the Self-Service portal. The more the common members, the stronger the match.

Steps to View Similar Groups:

1. Log into the Self-Service portal.
2. Click Groups in the left pane.
3. On the My Groups page, click the display name of a group to view which groups in the directory are similar to it.
4. On the group properties page, click the Similar Groups tab.
   
   
   
   GroupID displays six groups that have the strongest similarity to the selected group. The similarity is calculated on the basis of group type and membership.
   
   Take the example of a distribution group (Sales) that has 3 members; Sarah, Frank, and Robin. When you open this group’s properties and go to the Similar Groups tab, the portal displays six groups that have the strongest similarity to the Sales group. To be ranked as similar to Sales, groups must be of the ‘distribution’ type and have any or all three members that Sales has.
   
   The six similar groups are sorted in the order of strength, with the left pane displaying the strongest match at the top.
    
5. Click a bar for a group to view similarity details. 
   
   
   
   The Similarity Details dialog box displays the common type and common members that both groups have.

Reference:

GroupID Self-Service Portal Online Help