Hierarchy site settings

Settings for the hierarchy are placed under the Administration\Site Configuration\Sites tab. After choosing the site, the administrator needs to choose Hierarchy Settings. The General tab is used for setting up the way clients will cooperate with management points. The Use a fallback site option means that clients might automatically switch to another site if theirs is unavailable. The Clients prefer to use management points specified in boundary groups option means that clients will be using the preferred management point. The Consent to use Pre-Release features option means that, when installing a new version of ConfigMgr or installing upgrades, new features will be enabled by default, even if these features are still in the testing phase by Microsoft:

The Licensing tab provides the option of setting dates when Software Assurance is bought. Until the date is reached, the server will automatically check for any new version or updates and download them.

The Client Approval and Conflicting Records tab is very important for security reasons and computers managed by ConfigMgr clients. By default, if the client is in the same domain as the server, it connects to it automatically and will be managed. Client approval methods set up a way in which clients will be accepted by the server. The safest and most restrictive way is to set the manual acceptance method by an administrator. Until the administrator accepts a new client, communication will not be possible. The Conflicting client records is about published duplicated entries about the same ConfigMgr client.

The most secure as well as the most restrictive way is to set the acceptance to be performed manually by server administrators. Until administrators accept the client, it will not be able to communicate and be managed by the server. The Conflicting client records options are related to managing duplicated entries of the same client; these conflicts can be resolved by the server or by the administrator using the console.

The last tab in the hierarchy settings is Client Upgrade. After installing new upgrades to the server or installing a new version, there is a need to install a new version of the client. This can be achieved in two ways, manually or automatically, after setting the proper configuration on the server. By default, the server does not install new client versions automatically. This kind of deployment needs to be prepared by the administrator. Settings for automatic deployment of the clients are under the Client Upgrade tab.

The Upgrade all clients in the hierarchy using production client option enables the automatic upgrade of all clients in the hierarchy. Upgrade all clients in the pre-production collection automatically using pre-production client enables the installation of new client versions on an endpoint based on a particular collection. The Exclude specified clients from upgrade option allows you to exclude specific computers from automatic settings. Automatically distribute client installation package to distribution points that are enabled for prestaged content allows you to send a package to the endpoint and the installation of the client even if the distribution point works in a prestaged mode. When installing a new client version, it is good to consider installing it first on the pilot group, and later--if the pilot was successful--deploy this new version to production: