Organising Servers into Groups

Server Scout's grouping feature helps you organise your servers logically, making it easier to monitor and manage your infrastructure at scale. Whether you're managing development and production environments, different client systems, or servers across multiple locations, groups provide a clean way to segment your monitoring dashboard.

Creating Server Groups

Adding new groups to your Server Scout dashboard is straightforward:

1. Navigate to your main dashboard
2. Click the Add Group button in the groups section
3. Enter a descriptive name for your group
4. Click Create to confirm

Your new group will appear as a tab in the dashboard interface, ready to receive servers.

Managing Groups

Renaming Groups

To rename an existing group:

1. Right-click on the group tab
2. Select Rename Group from the context menu
3. Enter the new name and confirm

Alternatively, you can access group management options through the settings menu for each group.

Deleting Groups

When deleting a group:

1. Right-click on the group tab
2. Select Delete Group
3. Confirm the deletion

Important: Deleting a group doesn't remove the servers themselves—they'll return to the ungrouped view where they remain fully monitored and accessible.

Moving Servers Between Groups

Server Scout offers two convenient methods for organising servers into groups:

Drag-and-Drop Method

The quickest way to move servers:

1. Click and hold on any server card in your dashboard
2. Drag the server to the desired group tab
3. Drop it onto the tab to move the server

This method works whether you're moving servers from the ungrouped view or between existing groups.

Edit Modal Method

For more precise control:

1. Click on a server to open its details
2. Select Edit Server from the options menu
3. Use the Group dropdown to select the destination group
4. Click Save Changes

This method is particularly useful when editing multiple server properties simultaneously.

Group Navigation and Filtering

Once you've organised servers into groups, the dashboard tabs function as filters:

• All Servers: Shows every monitored server regardless of grouping
• Ungrouped: Displays servers not assigned to any specific group
• Custom Group Tabs: Each group appears as a clickable tab showing only servers within that group

Simply click any group tab to filter your dashboard view to that specific set of servers. This makes it easy to focus on particular environments or systems without distraction.

Best Practices for Group Organisation

By Environment

The most common approach is separating servers by environment:

• Production: Live, customer-facing systems
• Staging: Pre-production testing environment
• Development: Development and testing servers

By Server Role

Organise by function for role-based monitoring:

• Web Servers: Frontend application servers
• Database: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB instances
• Mail Servers: SMTP, IMAP services
• Monitoring: Logging and monitoring infrastructure

By Client or Project

For managed service providers:

• Client A: All servers for a specific client
• Client B: Separate client infrastructure
• Internal: Your own organisational systems

By Geographic Location

For distributed infrastructure:

• Cork DC: Servers in Cork data centre
• Dublin AWS: Dublin-region cloud instances
• On-Premises: Physical servers at company locations

Working with Ungrouped Servers

Servers without group assignments automatically appear in the default ungrouped view. This serves as a useful staging area for new servers before you decide on their proper categorisation. You can monitor and manage ungrouped servers normally—they have full functionality while you determine the best organisational structure.

Regular review of ungrouped servers ensures your monitoring remains well-organised as your infrastructure grows.

Group organisation in Server Scout scales with your needs, from simple environment separation to complex multi-dimensional categorisation schemes that reflect your unique infrastructure requirements.