Methods for reusing authored content

Overview

There are some situations when you want to share with others the content that you have created either in the Finder or in the Portal. Within a normal setup (that is, an installation with one Portal and several connected Engines) you can create some type of content that is instantly shared by other users of the system. This is the case, for instance, of centralized content created with the Finder or of content associated to roles.

Manual import/export in the Finder

Other kind of content that you create in the Finder is local to each Engine. To share local content, first connect to the Engine holding the elements to share with the Finder and export them manually, then connect to the target Engine to import them back. This manual method is also valid for exporting local or centralized content to Engines in different setups, as long as dependencies are respected. For instance, to export an investigation that uses in its conditions a category that is not present in the target Engine, you must import the category beforehand.

Publishing modules

The Portal has its own way of sharing content among different users: administrators can publish the modules that they create, and optionally assign them to roles, so that other users can profit from them. This method however does not let you take content from one Portal and import it into another Portal. This latter scenario typically occurs when you have separate pre-production and production environments.

Content packs

To export a coherent set of Finder and Portal elements at the same time, use content packs. A content pack groups in a single file multiple items of Finder content and Portal modules. For instance, recalling our dependency example above, you can include in a same content pack an investigation and the categories on which the investigation depends. Similarly, when exporting Portal modules, you definitely want to include in the same content pack the metrics and the services on which the modules depend. See in the following articles how to import content packs or make your own content packs.

Nexthink Library

Ready-made content packs are available from the Nexthink Library. The packs in the Library are designed to provide you with customizable solutions for different IT areas: security, transformation, compliance, etc. The method to import a library pack is different from importing a content pack from a file.

---

RELATED TASKS

• Reusing dashboard content

• Adding users (Defining user roles)

• Manually sharing Finder content

RELATED REFERENCES

• Local and shared content
• Nexthink Library