Understanding Hierarchical Configurations

When you transmit order information, you can establish a format that relays the information about the shipment, the orders within the shipment, and the items within the order. You define hierarchical configurations to transmit information that meets the customers' needs.

You can set up any structure based on the business needs. This table illustrates examples of hierarchical structures:

Structure	Description
Pick and Pack	This is the most flexible configuration because you can combine products at the tare and pack levels.
Standard Carton Pack	Within this configuration, only one UPC can be present in subordinate tare and pack levels.

Within the configurations, you can define hierarchies based on the customer preferences. This table provides examples of configuration levels:

Configuration Level	Description
Shipment (S)	Only one shipment level can be in each transaction set that is transmitted. This contains information such as the bill of lading number, ship to, and sold from information.
Order (O)	The order level contains information that is related to the supplier's sales order and the customer's purchase order.
Tare (T)	The optional tare level contains information that is related to pallets and other large product collections.
Pack (P)	The optional pack level contains information that is related to intermediate packs.
Item (I)	The item level contains information about the product that is shipped, such as UPC number and quantity.

One customer might need shipment, order, and item information in their orders, while another might prefer shipment, order, tare, pack, and item information, in that order. You define hierarchical configurations to transmit information that meets the customers' needs for their advanced shipment notice (ASN).

This diagram illustrates hierarchical configurations: