## Introduction

The Desktop Manager is a tool that offers centralized management of configuration settings, called profiles, for desktop applications. The Desktop Manager allows you to view and assign profiles to the various elements of an organization's or domain's hierarchy. Profiles are applied when a user starts a desktop session or an application that is managed by the Desktop Manager. All the profiles relevant for the user or the host running the application are retrieved, and their settings are integrated with the local defaults of the application and the user's custom settings. Profiles can be used to provide a set of centrally managed defaults to the application or to enforce mandatory settings.

Terms you should know:

- Configuration Repository: The organization and domain tree container, together with the profiles stored in it.

- Domain: An element in the domain tree. Represents a realm in a computer network. May contain domains and hosts.

- Element: A logical object to which configuration data can be assigned. Users, roles/groups, and organizations are examples of entities known to the Desktop Manager

- LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. LDAP is a directory service protocol that runs over TCP/IP. The details of LDAP are defined in RFC 1777 'The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol'.

- Organization: An element in the organization tree. Represents an organization or a sub-organization, for example, “Call Center”. May contain organizations, users, or roles.

- Profile: A named container for configuration settings. It is stored in a configuration repository and can be assigned to elements.