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About Hierarchical Rule Groups

A rule group is a group of categorized assignment rules. You can think of a rule group as similar to a territory. Delegated assignment provides a hierarchical (tree) distribution of rule groups as shown in The Rule Group Explorer. 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.

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 5, RG 2 is the parent of RG 4, but RG2 is not a root-level rule group. Only RG1 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 5 provides a sample rule hierarchy that shows how parent and root rule groups relate to other rule groups in the same hierarchy.

Figure 5.  Relationships Between Parent and Child Rule Groups in a Hierarchy

Figure 5 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).

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).

Rule Group Visibility and Permissions

The AA sees only the rule groups (and the rules within those rule groups) for his or her 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.

For more information about rule group hierarchies, see About the Rule Group Explorer.