Managed attribute trigger types

During configuration, you can specify a rule type for managed attribute triggers.

Managed value triggers are either leaf or non-leaf, while standard attribute triggers are not typed. Non-leaf precedence rules display the target attribute if the trigger managed value or its descendants are in the navigation state. Leaf precedence rules display the target attribute only after descendants of the trigger managed value have been selected.

The two types differ in how the trigger value of the managed attribute is interpreted:

For the non-leaf type, if the navigation state contains the trigger managed value or any of its descendants, then the target attribute is displayed.
For the leaf type, only leaf managed values (managed values with no children) that are descendants of the specified trigger managed value cause the target attribute to be displayed. The presence of the specified trigger managed value in the navigation state does not cause the target attribute to appear. Hence, a leaf precedence rule requires that the trigger managed value have children.

When managed value triggers are created, the isLeafTrigger attribute sets the type.

Non-leaf rule example

In this non-leaf rule example, we have a Color managed attribute with a child managed value named blue. We can construct a non-leaf precedence rule with blue as the trigger managed value and the managed attribute ShadesOfBlue as the target.

When the user drills into Color and selects blue, the target managed attribute ShadesOfBlue is displayed in the user interface.

Leaf rule example

For leaf type rules, we will use a hierarchical managed attribute named Country and a second managed attribute named State. The Country attribute hierarchy looks like this:

Country
   - North America
       - Canada
       - Mexico
       - United States
   - Europe
       - England
       - Spain
       - Italy

Logically, a user should choose a country before choosing a state. We can use a leaf precedence rule to suppress the display of the State attribute until a leaf value in the Country managed attribute (an actual country as opposed to a continent) has been selected. To achieve this, a leaf precedence rule is constructed with the Country root managed value as the trigger and the State managed attribute as the target.

If the user drills into Country and selects an intermediate child managed value (North America or Europe), the target State attribute is not displayed. However, once the user has selected a leaf value from the Country managed attribute (United States, Canada, Mexico, England, Spain, or Italy) the State managed attribute appears.