PDQ Inventory Filters: Advanced Usage & Examples

Purpose:

You wish to understand how to use and combine advanced filters in PDQ Inventory's dynamic collections and reports.

Resolution:

This guide will cover advanced collection and report filtering for the Registry, Files & Directories, and PowerShell Scanner.

For an introduction to using Filters in PDQ Inventory, check out the related article: PDQ Inventory Filters: Usage & Examples.

Matching Filters and Columns

In PDQ Inventory Dynamic Collections and Reports the filter column will match the columns of the data that has been scanned. Once data has been scanned in PDQ Inventory, creating a Dynamic Collection or Report from that data is as simple as knowing what columns contain what data.

Registry Collections & Reports

After following the guide PDQ Inventory Registry Scanner: Usage & Examples to create a Registry Scanner and then scanning your computers with the newly created Scanner, a Dynamic Collection or Report can be created using this data. Once the scanner has successfully scanned the target computers, the scanned registry data can be found in the Registry tab of a computer in PDQ Inventory. To create a Dynamic Collection or Report, the columns will need to be matched with the data displayed in PDQ Inventory. Each column present in the Registry data should be included in the Dynamic Collection Value Filters, to ensure the Collection's accuracy.

The below example will create a Dynamic Collection, for all computers that have been scanned with the Registry Scanner that contain the Value Server for the Value Name Mode in the Protocol Registry Key, by matching the columns in the Value Filters with the columns in the scanned Registry data.

To create a Dynamic Collection or Report of computers that do not have the Registry Value that was scanned for, add two additional Group Filters to the Dynamic Collection one Not All Group Filter to evaluate the Registry Value Filters and another All Group Filter that includes two new Value Filters; one Value Filter for Computer > Never Scanned > is False and another Value Filter for Scans > Profile > Contains > [Name of Registry Scan Profile]. Leave the top-level All Group Filter in place. This will ensure the computers that have never been scanned with the specific Registry Scanner won't be added to the Collection.

Files & Directories Collections & Reports

After following the guide PDQ Inventory Files & Directories Scanner: Usage & Examples to create a Files & Directories Scanner and then scanning your computers with the newly created Scanner, a Dynamic Collection or Report can be created using this data. In the example, we have created a Dynamic Collection to discover computers with the file Example.txt in the directory C:\Users\Public\Desktop. For the Dynamic Collection or Report based off of this data, the Value Filter columns in the Collection will need to match the columns from the Files & Directories data that was discovered from the Scanner.

To create a Dynamic Collection or Report of computers that do not have the File or Directory that was scanned for, add two additional Group Filters to the Dynamic Collection one Not All Group Filter to evaluate the Files & Directories Value Filters and another All Group Filter that includes two new Value Filters; one Value Filter for Computer > Never Scanned > is False and another Value Filter for Scans > Profile > Contains > [Name of Files & Directories Scan Profile]. Leave the top-level All Group Filter in place. This will ensure the computers that have never been scanned with the specific Files and Directories Scanner won't be added to the Collection.

PowerShell Scanner Collections & Reports

Dynamic Collections can also be created based off of PowerShell Scanner results. After scanning using the PowerShell Scanner columns will be created, in the PowerShell tab of the computers in PDQ Inventory, that contain the output from the Scanner. To create a Dynamic Collection from this data, use the Value Filter for the desired PowerShell Scanner and enter the data for the columns you wish to filter for. In the example we used the PowerShell Scanner to check if the built in Administrator account was enabled or disabled and created a Dynamic Collection based off of the results, using Value Filters from the columns in the output of the PowerShell Scanner.