31.1 Inherit from Policy Hierarchy

ZENworks utilizes a management hierarchy, or structure, that is ordered as follows:

  1. Management Zone

  2. Folder/Group

  3. Device/User

Polices can be assigned at each level. Assignments flow down, which means that policy assignments made at the Management Zone apply to all devices or users in the zone. Likewise, policy assignments made to a folder or group apply to all members of the folder or group. As a result of hierarchical assignments, it is possible for a device or user to be assigned multiple policies of the same type.

The Inherit from Policy Hierarchy option determines whether or not this policy can inherit settings from other policies (of the same type) that are above it in the hierarchy. Consider the following table:

Hierarchy Level

Policy (same type)

Inherit from Policy Hierarchy

Policy Setting 1 (Single-Value)

Policy Setting 2 (Single Value)

Policy Setting 3 (Multi-Value)

Zone

Policy_3

Yes

10

False

Device4,Device5

User Group 1

Policy_2

Yes

Inherit

Inherit

Device2;Device3

User A

Policy_1

Yes

Inherit

True

Device1;Device2

User A is directly assigned Policy_1. Because User A is a member of User Group 1 and the Zone, User A is indirectly assigned Policy_2 and Policy_3.

All three of the policies allow for inheritance. As a result, the final policy settings are determined by using the following method:

  1. Evaluation of policy settings begins with the lowest policy in the hierarchy (the policy closest to the user). In this case, Policy_1 is the lowest policy (because it is assigned directly to User A) and is evaluated first.

  2. If one of the Policy_1 settings is configured as Inherit, then the setting is inherited from Policy_2; if the Policy_2 setting is configured as Inherit, then the setting is inherited from the next policy in the hierarchy, which is Policy_3.

  3. Multi-value policy settings, such as tables, do not have an Inherit setting. With multi-value settings, all values from the assigned policies are combined.

Applying the inheritance methodology to the example in the above table, the resulting Policy_1 settings for User A are:

Hierarchy Level

Policy (same type)

Inherit from Policy Hierarchy

Policy Setting 1 (Single-Value)

Policy Setting 2 (Single Value)

Policy Setting 3 (Multi-Value)

User A

Policy_1

Yes

10 (inherited from Policy_3)

True

Device1;Device2

Device3 (inherited from Policy_2)

Device4;Device5 (inherited from Policy_3)