Guidelines for Creating Hierarchies and Hierarchy Versions

While creating hierarchies, you have to decide whether you want to create a new hierarchy or use a new version of an existing hierarchy.

When to Create a New Hierarchy

You can create a new hierarchy when any of the following is true:

• You have a new customer, and a new hierarchy is required to represent the corporate structure of the new customer.

• Your existing customer has changed the structure of its organization radically. It is quicker and more efficient to create a new version rather than edit the existing one.

When to Create a New Hierarchy Version

You can create a new version of a hierarchy when any of the following is true:

• You have minor changes to make to an existing version of a hierarchy, such as adding a new customer, or removing or repositioning an existing customer in the hierarchy.

• You must make extensive changes to an active hierarchy, but want to render the changes active only when they're all incorporated into the hierarchy. Then, create a new version of the hierarchy and set it to become active after a reasonable window period. You can make all the required changes and have the new version ready for activation by the scheduled date.