Organize Devices with Device Tags

Once you're past a handful of machines, a flat device list stops being useful. Tags are how you slice your fleet the way you think about it — by role, by site, by client type — so you can find and act on groups of devices instead of hunting one by one. Get a tagging habit going early and every later phase (monitoring, scripts, policies) gets easier.

How tags work

OpenFrame tags are key:value pairs. The key is the category, the value is the specific label. For example:

• Type: laptop / Type: desktop / Type: server
• Purpose: workstation / Purpose: point-of-sale
• Site: london / Site: remote

Using consistent keys (like Type and Purpose) is what makes tags powerful — you can filter the whole fleet by a key and instantly see every machine of that kind.

Decide your scheme before you tag. A handful of agreed keys used consistently beats fifty one-off labels. Write down your standard keys (e.g. Type, Purpose, Site) and stick to them.

Tag at enrollment (the best time)

The least-effort path is to tag a device as you add it, so it arrives already organized:

1. Devices → Add Device.
2. Pick the customer and platform as usual.
3. Click Add Device Tag.
4. Enter a Tag Name (the key — existing keys like Type or Purpose will suggest themselves) and a Tag Value.
5. Add more tag rows as needed, then generate/copy the install command. The tags are applied when the device enrolls.

For a big rollout, baking tags into the enrollment is far less work than tagging hundreds of devices afterward — see Deploy at Scale via RMM / GPO / MDM.

Filter the fleet by tag

This is the payoff. On the Devices list:

1. Click Device Tags (top right of the list).
2. A Sort and Filter panel opens showing your Tag Keys (e.g. Type, Purpose) as checkboxes.
3. Tick the keys you want to filter by and click Apply Filters.
4. The list narrows to matching devices. Use Reset Filters to clear.

Combine this with the Search for Devices box to drill down fast — e.g. filter to a tag, then search within the results.

Where tags pay off later

Tagging isn't busywork — it feeds the rest of the platform:

• Monitoring policies can target devices by tag, so a new policy automatically covers "all servers" or "all POS machines" (Phase 4).
• Scripts can be aimed at a tagged group instead of hand-picking devices (Phase 5).
• Reporting and triage get cleaner when devices are grouped the way your team actually works.

The five minutes you spend defining tags now saves hours of manual device-picking across every later phase.

Quick checklist

• Agreed a small set of standard tag keys (e.g. Type, Purpose, Site)
• Tagged devices at enrollment via Add Device Tag
• Used the Device Tags filter to confirm tags apply correctly
• Planned to target monitoring and scripts by tag in later phases

What's next

That completes Phase 2 — Device Deployment: agents installed on macOS and Windows, devices verified, and your fleet named and tagged. Next is Phase 3 — Platform Navigation, where you'll get oriented in the dashboard, the devices list, and how customers map to your clients.

Based on OpenFrame v0.9.19. Screens and defaults may shift between releases — when in doubt, what's in your console wins.