Bulk updating policies in MaaS360

Bulk update policies is a process of applying the same policy settings to multiple policies simultaneously.

When you update the policy settings, you can select multiple policies and apply identical settings to all of them simultaneously. For instance, if you modify passcode settings in policy A and do a bulk update by selecting policies B, C, and D, IBM® MaaS360® applies the same passcode settings to the selected policies.

Notes:
  • In this document, the term source policy refers to the policy you edit, while the term target policies refer to the additional policies you select for bulk update.
  • The status of the source policy must be Published or Needs publish. All existing policies qualify as target policies irrespective of their status.
  • Exercise caution when you select policies for bulk updates. After the source policy is published, the bulk update operation cannot be canceled or undone.

Using bulk update in IBM MaaS360

Follow the steps to update policies in bulk in IBM MaaS360.
  1. From the IBM MaaS360 Portal Home page, go to Security > Policies.
  2. Open an MDM policy and then click Edit.
  3. After editing policy settings in the Configure Settings tab, click the Review changes tab.
  4. Click Apply changes to more policies.

    The Apply changes to more policies slide-out window is displayed.

    Note: A struct is a group of related settings in IBM MaaS360 policies. Consider that the name or an ID of a struct matches in the source and target policies, for example, the SSID in a wifi profile. In this case, the settings of the target policy are updated with the corresponding settings from the source policy. However, if the name of the struct does not match, the entire struct in the target policy is replaced with the policy settings from the source policy.
  5. Use the search and filter options to narrow down the policies that are displayed for bulk update.
  6. Select target policies that you want to update.
  7. Click the Preview Changes option that is displayed against the policy to view the changes between the previous and the current version of that policy.
  8. Select Publish additional policies along with current policy.
    • If this option is selected, IBM MaaS360 automatically publishes target policies on publishing the source policy.
      Note: Exercise caution when you use this setting. If the policy is assigned to multiple groups, the new policy settings are automatically applied to all devices in those groups. It is important to carefully review policy assignments and consider the impact of the new settings on devices before you select this option. For instance, if passcode settings are updated, affected devices start displaying the new passcode prompt.
    • If this option is not selected, you need to separately publish each target policy.
  9. Click Confirm. The Publish policy window is displayed.
  10. Review the number of impacted devices and users and add comments for future audits.
  11. Click Confirm.

What to do next

Tracking bulk update history

Track the history of all the bulk update events in the Bulk Edit History page.

Follow the steps to track bulk update history in the IBM MaaS360 Portal.
  1. From the IBM MaaS360 Portal Home page, go to Security > Policies. The policies list page is displayed.
  2. Click More in the upper-right and then select Bulk Update History. The Bulk Edit History page is displayed.
  3. Review the history of all the bulk update events.
    IBM MaaS360 displays the following details in Bulk Update History.
    Column Description
    Status The overall status of the bulk update action.
    Type The type of policy.
    Source Policy The policy that is used as a base for the bulk update.
    Policies updated The list of target policies that are selected for the bulk update action. You can use the link in the Policies Updated column to view the status of each target policy.
    Administrator The administrator who did the bulk update operation.
    Request Time Timestamp the bulk update action was triggered.
    Completion Time Timestamp the bulk update operation completed.