Can I tag backup resources or storage devices/units in Bocada Cloud reports?

Bocada Cloud's Tags feature enables the creation and assignment of custom tags to backup resources and endpoints (clients, VM, servers, mailboxes, etc.), and storage devices and units. These tags can then be used when configuring reports, dashboard widgets, custom email notifications and ticket triggers. 

Tag Use Examples

Decommissioning: if you have decommissioned a machine that was previously in your inventory as a backup resource or storage device but is no longer active, you may want to remove it from appearing in reports. You can tag it as "Decommissioned" and then exclude any resource with that tag from reports and Dashboards, including those that are automatically distributed. 

Categorization: if you want to group backup resources or storage devices/units into specific categories outside of standard report groupings (such as by priority, sub-organization or geographic location), you can add one or more tags and then create custom reports by editing the report criteria to include and/or exclude specific tags. 

Notifications / Tickets: you can tag one or more resources, endpoints, storage devices or storage units and specifically include or exclude them from being considered when a custom email notification or ticket is generated. 

Create a Tag 

Users with a Super Administrator role can create, edit, hide/unhide, assign or unassign tags to backup resources, endpoints, storage devices and/or storage units. Users with other roles can view visible tags and use tag filters in Reports, Dashboards, Email Notification and Ticketing triggers.

Use the Tag Manager

If you know what tags you want to create and make available to be used in configurations, start with the Tag Manager. Creating tags on this page gives you more flexibility to describe and assign a color to a tag, and is where you can manage tags created "on the fly" elsewhere in the UI.

On the Administration left navigation menu, select Tag Manager

In the top right of the page, click the + icon to add a new tag

Enter the Tag name, and a description

Select what color you would like to use for the tag - either the default Bocada Cloud colors used in light or dark mode, or a specific background and/or foreground color. You can also preview what the tag will look like before you save it. 

Once you have saved a Tag, you will see it on your Tags list along with the following attributes and actions:

• Number of resources/endpoints, storage devices and/or storage units with that tag
• Status of the tag - either visible or hidden (see "Hide/Unhide tag" below)
• Date/time the tag was created or modified
• Edit tag - edit the tag name, description or color
• Hide/Unhide tag - make the tag visible or hidden from the Tag drop-down menu
  • If a tag is hidden, it will no longer be used in the include/exclude criteria in reports, notifications and ticket triggers. For example, if a resource has been tagged and then excluded from a report, it will not appear. However, if that tag is later hidden, the resource (and any other resources with that tag) will no longer be excluded from the report and will appear. 

• • Additionally, hidden tags will not appear as an option in the Tags drop-down menu when assigning tags to a resource or storage device/unit in a report, notification or ticket trigger. Only tags with a status of "visible" will appear in the tags drop-down menu.

Assign a Tag 

Super Administrators can assign/unassign a tag to a resource, endpoint, storage device or storage unit in any report that has the Tags column. This includes most backup job activity reports, as well as the Storage Utilization report. 

To assign a tag, click the tag icon next to the resource, endpoint, storage device or storage unit in the report and the "Manage Tags" right-side panel will display for that item. Click the drop-down menu to see all visible tags that have already been created.

This is a multi-select field so you can assign more than one tag at a time. You can also click the blue x next to a tag to remove it. 

You can also type a brand new tag into the field if you like. Once added, it will display on the Tag Manager page as well. 

Resource Audit Report: Bulk Assign / Remove Tags

We recommend using the Resource Audit report to tag multiple items in your inventory. You can bulk-assign tags, or bulk-remove tags at one time.

Filter, group or otherwise narrow the list of items you want to bulk-assign or bulk-remove tags from first. Then, to enable the bulk action, click the "Enable Row Selection" icon in the top right of the report (two check marks) and it will place checkboxes next to each row. 

Then, you can click the top checkbox to check all of the items in the list

Next, in the top right of the report, you can see the number of items you have selected, and then use an action button to:

• Assign tags to selected resources (tags icon)
• Unassign tags to selected resources (delete trash can icon)
• Clear the selected items (eraser icon)

Use Tags to Configure a Report

If you want to configure a report that includes or excludes specific tags, click the three dots at the top right of the report to Edit Report Criteria. You will have an option to Include or Exclude tags from displaying in the report.

Once your report is displaying the data you want to see, save it as a custom saved report to your Report library and it will automatically be updated as you assign/unassign tags to resources or endpoints. 

Use Tags in a Custom Email Notification or Ticket Trigger

You can automatically include or exclude specific tagged resources/endpoints from being considered in the trigger criteria for a custom email notification or ticket to be generated. 

FAQ

Q: Can I delete a tag?
A: No. Tags cannot be deleted because they may already be assigned to resources/storage devices and used in saved reports, criteria, notifications, or trigger filters. Removing them permanently could change or break those saved settings.

Instead, tags can be hidden. Hiding a tag removes it from normal tag lists, filters, and report displays, but keeps its existing assignments and saved references intact. If the tag is unhidden later, it becomes available again with its previous assignments preserved.

Q: Can I tag endpoints? 
A: Yes. Endpoints can be tagged just like backup resources. On the Tag Manager page, endpoints are considered the same thing as Resources in terms of the number of times the tag has been used, when it was created and last modified. 

Q: What is the difference between a Storage Device and a Storage Unit?
A: On the Tag Manager page, you'll see two separate columns for Storage Device and Storage Unit. For cloud-based S3 Storage, a Storage Device refers to the storage account and the Storage Unit refers to the storage bucket. For on-premise installed storage, Storage Device refers to the parent or top-level storage container, and the Storage Unit refers to the child container inside the device.