If you are maintaining a number of FortiGate units within a network, many of the policies and configuration elements will be the same across the corporation. In these instances, the adding and editing of many of the same policies will be come a tedious and error‑prone activity. With FortiManager global objects, this level of configuration is simplified.

A global object is an object that is not associated specifically with one device or group. Global objects includes security policies, a DNS server, VPN, and IP pools.

The Global Objects window is where you can configure global objects and copy the configurations to the FortiManager device database for a selected device or a group of devices. You can also import configurations from the FortiManager device database for a selected device and modify the configuration as required.

When configuring or creating a global policy object the interface, prompts, and fields are the same as creating the same object on a FortiGate unit using the FortiGate web‑based manager.