Asset groups in the Asset Management portal

When asset groups and user groups are enabled, you can filter products in the Asset Management portal Products > Product List by using the dropdown menus.

User groups and asset groups have a many to many relationship. This means that one asset group can be associated with multiple user groups, and vice versa.

A user's view scope defines what assets are visible to the user depending on the asset groups they have access to. If the sub user's user group has access to multiple asset groups, then the sub user's view scope will include the combined assets of all of these asset groups.

If the user filters the Products > Product List page by the User group and Asset group dropdown menus, then only the assets that are assigned to the selected asset group are displayed. Asset groups that are not associated with the selected user group cannot be selected from the Asset group dropdown menu.

The Search product list field can be used to filter for specific assets before and after filtering with the User group and Asset group dropdown menus.

Example of the asset group and user group relationship

The following example demonstrates navigating the available assets based on the user's view scope using the many to many relationship style. The example user has administrative access and belongs to the MyUserGroup user group.

For the purpose of this example, fake asset serial numbers are used.

Filtering assets by asset group

MyUserGroup is associated with two asset groups, MyTestGroup1 and MyTestGroup2. When no user group is selected from the User group dropdown menu, the user can filter assets by any of the available user groups, including AllAssets and Unassigned, by selecting from the Asset group dropdown menu.

If the user selects one of the asset groups, the assets will filter so that only the assets assigned to that asset group are displayed. For example, if the user selects MyTestGroup1, only the five assets assigned to that group will be displayed.

If the user changes the asset group to MyTestGroup2, the seven assets assigned to that group are displayed instead. However, since the FortiGate 100D assets ending in xxxx and zzzz are assigned to both the MyTestGroup1 and MyTestGroup2 asset groups, they are still displayed.

Filtering assets by user group

If a user group is selected, then only the asset groups associated with that user group can be selected. For example, if the MyUserGroup is selected, then the user can only select MyTestGroup1 or MyTestGroup2 from the Asset group dropdown menu.

If the user selects one of the asset groups, then the assets will filter to show only the assets assigned to that asset group. This is the same as what was displayed when filtering by asset group alone.

However, if no asset group is selected from the Asset group dropdown menu, then all of the assets in the user's view scope are displayed. In this example, that means that all of the assets assigned to MyTestGroup1 and MyTestGroup2 are displayed. However, the overlapping assets are not duplicated. Therefore, while the FortiGate 100D assets ending in xxxx and zzzz are assigned to both the MyTestGroup1 and MyTestGroup2 asset groups, they are only displayed once in the list.