How Can I find what collections a collection is a member of

Question

How Can I find what collections a collection is a member of

Patrick McCoy 1

The question may sound odd, but I have taken over a location that manages software deployments for it's local area within a larger enterprise. My predecessor set up the majority of our collections and instead of deploying the software directly to our collections, he put them in the "Membership Rules" of the enterprise level.

Normally, you would go to the collection and click on the deployment tab to determine what is going on with the collection, but in this case, since there is no deployment to it, that tab is blank, along with most all other details.

Now, I have to back track and try to figure out which enterprise level collections all of our collections are a member of so I can at least note the collections so that me and anyone that needs to look can easily tell what the purpose of the collection is.

So, the question is just that. Other than going to each and every Enterprise Collection and looking at it's membership rules to see if one of our local collections is listed, Is there a way via Script or GUI that will tell me what collections a specific collection is a member of, similar to how you can see what collections a machine is a member of?

Seng, Matthew McCutcheon 1 Reputation point

2022-08-24T19:02:34.277+00:00

We regularly use collections for deploying software, where each software title has it's own "deployment" collection, and then we make other collections (which contain devices) members of those deployment collections. This provides a level of flexibility that is useful to our large, distributed organization. However this comes with the problem OP noted, where you're never quite sure which deployment collections a given "device" collection is a member of, just by looking at the device collection.

Previously there was no native way to do this (aside from attempting to delete a collection and getting an error listing the collection which reference it). I made my own PowerShell script which searched the collections for this, but it was painfully slow, as it had to poll all membership rules for all collections. However as of version 2009 you can now view a graphical map of collection relationships. See:
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/5bfbe5c8-cf1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8879
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/get-started/2020/technical-preview-2009#bkmk_coll

If any one is still interested in the PowerShell, see: https://github.com/engrit-illinois/Get-CMCollsWhichIncludeColl

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Seng, Matthew McCutcheon 1 Reputation point

2022-08-24T19:02:34.277+00:00

We regularly use collections for deploying software, where each software title has it's own "deployment" collection, and then we make other collections (which contain devices) members of those deployment collections. This provides a level of flexibility that is useful to our large, distributed organization. However this comes with the problem OP noted, where you're never quite sure which deployment collections a given "device" collection is a member of, just by looking at the device collection.

Previously there was no native way to do this (aside from attempting to delete a collection and getting an error listing the collection which reference it). I made my own PowerShell script which searched the collections for this, but it was painfully slow, as it had to poll all membership rules for all collections. However as of version 2009 you can now view a graphical map of collection relationships. See:
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/5bfbe5c8-cf1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8879
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/get-started/2020/technical-preview-2009#bkmk_coll

If any one is still interested in the PowerShell, see: https://github.com/engrit-illinois/Get-CMCollsWhichIncludeColl

Answer 1

Hi,

You may try the sql query to get what collections limit your collection, include your collection and exclude your collection.
Just modify the DependentCollectionID of your collection ID, or remove the last line "where DependentCollectionID='xxxxxxxx'" to get results for all of your collections:
select
v_Collection.name,
SourceCollectionID,
Case
When vSMS_CollectionDependencies.relationshiptype = 1 then 'Limited To'+SourceCollectionID
when vSMS_CollectionDependencies.relationshiptype = 2 then 'Include'+SourceCollectionID
when vSMS_CollectionDependencies.relationshiptype = 3 then 'Exclude'+SourceCollectionID
end as "Type of Relationship"
from v_Collection
join vSMS_CollectionDependencies on vSMS_CollectionDependencies.DependentCollectionID = v_Collection.CollectionID
where DependentCollectionID='xxxxxxxx'

Regards,
Allen

AllenLiu-MSFT 49,316 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2020-08-21T08:39:14.893+00:00

It seems there is no update for a couple of days. May we know the current status of the problem? Is there any other assistance we can provide?
If the above responses help you, please click "Accept Answer".

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How Can I find what collections a collection is a member of

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