Parent and Root-Level Rule Groups

This topic is part of About Assignment Rule Group Hierarchy.

A parent rule group is a rule group that directly precedes another rule group in the hierarchy. A root-level rule group is a rule group without a parent. For example, in the following image, 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, because it is the only rule group in the hierarchy that does not have a parent rule group (and, subsequently, is at the head of the hierarchy).

The following image provides a sample rule hierarchy that shows how parent and root rule groups relate to other rule groups in the same hierarchy.

Relationships Between Parent and Child Rule Groups in a Hierarchy: In this image RG1 (root-level rule group) has the following children: RG2 and RG3 (leaf node). RG2 has the following children: RG4 and RG5 (both of which are leaf nodes).

This image shows 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 head 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 lower levels of the hierarchy (RG3, RG4, and RG5).
Rules at the leaf nodes are processed first by Assignment Manager. If none of those rules pass, then Assignment Manager processes rules in the set of rule groups that precedes the leaf nodes, and so on, until the root-level rule group is processed. This method of processing the rules ensures that, if a rule is inherited from one rule group to another, then 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).