Selecting Your Severity Assessment Rating

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Vista

You can assign a severity assessment rating to any update listed in the Updates screen. You base a severity assessment, which should apply to your entire organization, on your own testing results and organizational requirements. You can also add, rename, and delete any severity assessment, as well as filter your update data according to the assessment.

The severity assessment choices include:

• Critical. The highest severity assessment. Critical updates are so important to your organization that, unless you certify them, you will not deploy the updated operating system.

• Important. Your organization regularly uses Important items, but it can continue to function without them. You can choose to deploy the updated operating system without requiring certification.

• Moderate. The assessment for updates that do not fall into the previous two categories, but have enough importance to appear in your ACT compatibility reports. You can deploy the updated operating system without requiring certification.

• Low. The assessment for updates that are irrelevant to your organization's day-to-day functioning. You can use this severity assessment to filter out the unimportant items from your reports.

• Unspecified. The assessment for updates that have not yet been assessed by your organization. This is the default value and automatically applied to all updates.

Creating Custom Severity Assessment Levels

In addition to the default severity values, you have the option to add, rename, or delete any of the existing severity levels from the Severity List dialog box, which is accessible from both the Updates screen and the <Update_Name> dialog box.

To add, rename, or delete a severity assessment on the Updates screen

1. On the Updates screen, click the application name for which you want to add an assessment.

2. On the Actions menu, click Set Severity.

   The Set Severity dialog box appears.

3. Click Severity List.

   The Severity List dialog box appears.

4. Click Add to add a new severity assessment, Rename to change the name of your severity assessment, or Remove to delete a severity assessment from the Application Compatibility Manager.

5. Click OK.

   The Application Compatibility Manager updates the severity assessment options that appear in the Set Severity dialog box.

Selecting a Severity Assessment

You can select your organization's severity assessment for any update from both the Updates screen and the <Update_Name> dialog box.

To select the severity assessment on the Updates screen

1. On the Updates screen, click the update name to which you want to add your severity assessment.

2. On the Actions menu, click Set Severity.

   The Set Severity dialog box appears.

3. Click your severity assessment rating, and then click OK.

To select the severity assessment in the <Update_Name> dialog box

1. In the Updates screen, double-click the update name to which you want to add your severity assessment.

   The <Update_Name> dialog box appears.

2. On the Actions menu, click Set Severity.

   The Set Severity dialog box appears.

3. Click your severity assessment rating, click OK to close the Set Severity dialog box, and then click Close to close the <Update_Name> dialog box.

Filtering By Severity Assessment Rating

You can filter your update data by using your severity assessment rating on the associated report screen.

To filter based on severity rating

1. On the Updates screen, click Toggle Filter.

   The Query Builder appears with a blank row.

2. Enter your filter criteria, pressing the TAB key to add additional clauses.

3. The following example shows a query filters for all applications with an assessment of Critical or Important.

4. Click Refresh.

   Your filtered results appear.

See Also

Concepts

Filtering and Organizing Your Compatibility Data
Example Filter Queries
Viewing Quick Reports