Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide > Assignment Rule Administration for Delegated Assignment >

About Assignment Rule Group Hierarchy

A rule group is a group of categorized assignment rules. You might think of a rule group as similar to a territory. The delegated assignment feature provides a hierarchical (tree) distribution of rule groups as shown in Figure 28. The logic defined in the rules in rule groups at the top of the hierarchy is enforced down the hierarchy, but can be refined.

The following subtopics describe rule group hierarchy in further detail.

The Rule Group Explorer

The Rule Group Explorer is one of the views in the administration screens. The Rule Group Explorer (see Figure 28) is a graphical representation of the rule group hierarchy tree and provides a convenient way to navigate the entire rule group hierarchy. The relationships between parent and child rule groups is a hierarchy.

Figure 28. Sample Rule Group Explorer

Figure 28 shows the following relationships:

• Root-level rule groups
• Child rule groups and their characteristics:
  • Rule Groups (lists all child rule groups for the current rule group)
  • Rules
  • Designees
  • Inheritable Rules

Rules in rule groups at the bottom of a hierarchy are processed first, moving up one level each time no rule in the previous level passes. Within each level in the hierarchy, the rules are processed by ascending order of sequence number.

Administrators (AAs and DAs) use the Rule Group Explorer to create and maintain rule group hierarchies. Assignment Administrators have organization visibility, so they see the rules for their specific organization or organizations. Typically, AAs use the Rule Group Explorer views in the assignment administration screen but can also use the views in the delegated assignment administration screen. Delegated Administrators s must use the My Rule Group Explorer view in the delegated assignment screen and can see only rule groups for which they are an owner or designee, and the rule groups and rules that appear below (subtree).

DAs can only create a new rule group below one for which they are the owner or designee; this new rule group is a child rule group of the original rule. DAs can also create grandchild rule groups, great-grandchild rule groups, and so on.

Parent and Root-Level Rule Groups

A parent rule group is a rule group that appears directly above another rule group in the hierarchy. A root-level rule group is a rule group without a parent. For example, in Figure 29, RG 2 is the parent of RG 4, but RG 2 is not a root-level rule group. Only RG 1 is a root-level rule group—that is because it is the only rule group in the hierarchy that does not have a parent rule group (and, subsequently, is at the top of the hierarchy).

Figure 29 provides a sample rule hierarchy that shows how parent and root rule groups relate to other rule groups in the same hierarchy.

Figure 29.  Relationships Between Parent and Child Rule Groups in a Hierarchy

Figure 29 show the following relationships:

• Rule groups that have no parent are root-level rule groups. There is only one root-level rule group for each hierarchy and that root-level rule group appears at the top of the hierarchy (RG1).

  NOTE:  Only assignment administrators (not delegated administrators) can create root-level rule groups.

• Rule groups that are parents to no other rule groups (rule groups with no child rule groups) are considered leaf rule groups and appear at the bottom of the hierarchy (RG3, RG4, and RG5).
• Rules at the leaf nodes are processed first by Assignment Manager. If none of those rules, pass Assignment Manager processes rules in the set of rule groups above the leaf nodes, and so on, until the root-level rule group is processed. This makes certain that if a rule is inherited from one rule group to another, the inherited rule is passed first.

NOTE:  The Default Rule Group is a root-level rule group (has no parent) as well as a leaf node (has no child).

Assignment Owners and Designees

Assignment Manager uses ownership as a means to determine if a particular rule is eligible for inheritance by a rule group. Each rule group must have an owner, and a rule group defaults to the creator (as owner) when a new rule group is created.

NOTE:  The concept of ownership is an integral part of delegated assignment functionality; however, if you do not use delegated assignment, ownership serves no functional role.

Owners can delegate their responsibility to designees with the same rights as an owner. A designee is an individual who can view and edit rule groups (and the rules within those rules groups) on behalf of an owner. The owner and the designees of a rule group are collectively known as delegated administrators (DAs).

Assignment Rule Inheritance

Rule inheritance allows assignment administrators (AAs) to enforce business logic, while allowing delegated administrators (DAs) to further refine that logic. In addition, inheritors of rules can refine those same rules and specialize them for their unique circumstances.

Criteria templates are special criteria that can be applied to inherited rules. Assignment Manager does not process criteria templates until an inheritor of an assignment rule chooses to apply a template to the inherited rule.

To use criteria templates, administrators (AA or DA) must first create criteria templates for inheritable rules by checking the Template field in the Criteria list for the criteria they want as templates. When an assignment rule is inherited, the inheritor has the option to either apply the criteria templates into an actual criterion--by checking the Create From Templates button in the Criteria view tab--or to create a new criterion for the inherited rule.

NOTE:  Assignment Manager ignores criteria that have the Template field checked on an assignment rule until such time as that rule is inherited and the criteria template is applied to the inherited rule.

TIP:   It is recommended that AAs create criteria templates to assist DAs in rule creation. This reduces the need for DAs to fully understand the steps required and implications of creating new logic.

Rule Group Visibility and Permissions

AAs have visibility only for the rule groups (and the rules within those rule groups) for their specific organization (unless given permission to the All Rule Groups Across Organizations view). DAs have visibility only to the rule groups for which they are an owner (or designee) and each of their rule groups' subtrees. An owner of a particular rule group cannot be the owner (or designee) of a rule group lower in the hierarchy (subtree), but can be an owner (or designee) for rule groups in other hierarchies.

TIP:   DAs can only inherit rules from a parent rule group and can refine inherited rules to specialize them, but cannot remove any of the logic specified in the original rule.