ControlPoint 8.8 - Administration Guide

Customizing ControlPoint Menus

From the ControlPoint Menu Maintenance page, ControlPoint Application Administrators can create custom menus to meet specific needs of different administrative groups.  

NOTE:  ControlPoint's base menu structure (SharePoint Hierarchy, Manage ControlPoint, Favorites, and Search Hierarchy panels) cannot be modified.

Guidelines for Creating Customized Menus for Different Groups of Users

If there are groups of ControlPoint users that should have similar rights to SharePoint and ControlPoint functions, the ControlPoint Application Administrator should first define groups for these users from within the ControlPoint Configuration site.  See Setting Up ControlPoint Users and Groups.

When setting up users and groups and granting access to the ControlPoint application, ControlPoint Application Administrators should consider the roles of various groups of users in the organization to determine the features to which they should have access.

Example 1:  Adding Frequently-Used Items to a ControlPoint Menu

If there is a SharePoint function that is used often by administrators in your organization, you can add that item to a custom menu.  For example, if you frequently need to check a timer job status, you can add an item to a farm-level custom menu which links directly to the appropriate Central Administration page.

Example 2:  Restricting Access to Advanced Functionality

The items for managing Sensitive Content and Anomalous Activity Detection are on the original" Manage ControlPoint menu provided by Quest (that is, ManageCP.xml).  In the left navigation pane, these items display in the Manage ControlPoint panel.

If you do not want the majority of administrators to have access to ControlPoint Sentinel functionality for aomalous activity detection,, you may want to create a customized Manage ControlPoint menu from which these privileges have been removed, and then restrict their access to the original ControlPoint-ManageCP menu.

You could then use this menu as the "default" menu on which additional customized menus are based.

Example 3:  Groups with Access to a Subset of Features

If there is a group of users in your organization primarily responsible for monitoring storage utilization, you may want to create a group for these users.  You can then create a customized ControlPoint menu that contains only items they need (in this example, SharePoint Summary Report, Storage Analysis tools, and Trend Analysis), while eliminating items that they might not need (such as Activity Analysis tools and additional Content Analysis tools) and/or should not have access to (such as tools for managing Configuration and Users and Security), by restricting their access to the original ControlPoint menu files.

You can also customize menus in this manner for the Business Administrators group if you want to "override" the security trimming imposed by ControlPoint original menus.  (That is, you can create menus that give Business Users either more or less functionality than is provided by default.)

Additional Factors to Consider

By default, all custom menus inherit users and permissions from the ControlPoint Menus document library, which in turn inherits from the ControlPoint Configuration site collection.  However, you can break this inheritance and assign unique permissions to individual menu files (that is, to restrict access to the original menus).  

Additionally, if a user has permissions for more than one menu with the same target location (for example SharePoint Hierarchy- farm level), the menus are "merged" for display in the left navigation pane, with items unique to each menu preserved and duplicate items eliminated.

You should keep these factors in mind when planning and deploying customized menu.  Use the information in the following table for guidance with some common scenarios.

Accessing the ControlPoint Menu Maintenance Page

To access the Menu Maintenance page:

From the Manage ControlPoint tree, choose ControlPoint Configuration > Menu Maintenance.

Note that, if custom menus have already been created, they will display in the Saved Menus grid.

Creating a Custom Menu

To create a custom menu:

1At the top of the Menu Maintenance page, click Create Custom Menu.

2Complete the Menu Details with a Menu Name and Description.

Note that the Menu Name cannot contain spaces or special characters.

3Select a Target Menu (that is the area of the ControlPoint left navigation pane that you want to customize).  Use the information in the following table for guidance.

NOTE:  The choice of target menu will determine which ControlPoint operations are available for selection and where they will display in the ControlPoint application interface.

IMPORTANT:  Once you have saved a new menu, the Target Menu cannot be changed.

4Click [Update].

To add ControlPoint menu items to a custom menu:

NOTE:  If you want to add links to SharePoint pages or custom items that do not currently exist in a ControlPoint menu (such as internal or external web sites or web-based applications), follow the procedure for Adding and Updating Custom Items in a Menu.

1From the Copy From drop-down, select the menu from which you want to copy items.

Note that this drop-down includes both the "original" menu provided by Quest and any custom menus that have been created for that target.

2In the list that displays in the left column, select each item that you want to add.  Use the information in the following table for guidance.

3To add the highlighted item(s) to the selection list, either:

§drag and drop the item(s) onto the item below which you want to nest it.

OR

§highlight the item below which you want to nest the new item(s) then click the [Add] button.

To change the placement of items:

1If you want to move multiple items at once, hold down the [Ctrl] or [Shift] key and highlight each item you want to move.

2Drag and drop the item(s) onto the item below which you want to nest it.

To remove items:

1In the right pane, highlight the item(s) you want to remove.  (To select multiple items, hold down the [Ctrl] or [Shift] key.

2Do one of the following:

3drag and drop the item(s) to the left pane.

OR

§click the [Remove] button.

§To remove all items in the right pane, click the Clear All link.

To save the custom menu:

When you have finished adding items to the menu, click [Save Menu].

IMPORTANT:  If you do not click [Save Menu] and receive a confirmation dialog, any changes you made will be lost when you navigate away from the page.  

Now you can manage access to the customized menu.