Effects of changes to classification hierarchies

When you add or remove customers from classifications, the change can affect other classifications or attributes in the hierarchy. If you change the hierarchy by adding a parent classification, or change or clear the parent classification, the customer associations for other classifications in the hierarchy or their attributes can be affected.

Adding customer associations to customer-specific classifications

• If you add a customer association when Associate Customers with Children is selected, the customer is added to all child classifications.

• If you add a customer association when Associate Customers with Attributes is selected, the customer is added to all customer-specific attributes of the classification.

• If you add a customer association, the customer becomes associated with all ancestors, unless the ancestor is a global classification, or is already associated with the customer.

Removing customer associations from customer-specific classifications

• If you remove a customer association from a classification, and the classification has a customer-specific parent classification, you can remove the customer association from all ancestors of the classification. The removal affects all customer-specific classifications in the hierarchy that are associated with the customer. However, if a customer-specific parent classification has other child classifications that are associated with this customer, or if the classification has a customer-specific attribute that is associated with this customer, then the customer is not removed from the parent classification.

• If you remove a customer association and that customer is associated with customer-specific attributes for that classification, the customer is removed from these attributes.

• If you remove a customer association, the customer is removed from all descendant classifications at all hierarchy levels. For each descendant classification, the customer is removed from any customer-specific attributes.

Adding a customer-specific parent classification to a customer-specific classification

• If you add a customer-specific parent classification, and Associate Customers with Children is selected on the parent, the customers that are associated with the parent are associated with the classification.

• If the classification has attributes and Associate Customers with Attributes is selected, then the customers that are added to the classification are associated with all customer-specific attributes.

• If the classification has children and Associate Customers with Children is selected, then the customers that are added to the classification are associated with each child classification.

• The additional customers are propagated to subsequent levels in the classification hierarchy and to customer-specific attributes of these classifications, depending on whether Associate Customers with Children and Associate Customers with Attributes are selected on these classifications.

• If the classification has associated customers, these customers are propagated up the hierarchy to the new customer-specific parent classification and all of its ancestors in the hierarchy. Customers are added to the parent and ancestor classifications only if the customer is not already associated with the classification and the classification is not global.

Changing the parent of a customer-specific classification

If the previous parent was also a customer-specific classification then the previous parent might not need some of the customers associated with the classification.

Example

Classification IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER

• IT is global

• IT \ HARDWARE is customer specific

• Customer 1

• Customer 2

• IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER is customer specific

• Customer 1

• Customer 2

If you restructure the classification hierarchies and want to move the classification for IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER so that the classification path is IT \ COMPUTERS \ DESKTOP COMPUTER, the following classification hierarchy remains:

• IT is global

• IT \ HARDWARE is customer specific

• Customer 1

• Customer 2

Customer 1 and Customer 2 might be redundant on the classification IT \ HARDWARE. Redundant customer associations are customers that are no longer referenced by any customer-specific attributes or any other child classifications.

If redundant customer associations are removed on the previous parent, the system removes the customers from the next customer-specific ancestor in the hierarchy. A customer association is not removed from an ancestor if it is referenced by one of its customer-specific attributes or by another child classification.

Example

Classification IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER \ VIDEOCARD

• IT is global

• IT \ HARDWARE is customer specific

• IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER is customer specific

• IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER \ VIDEOCARD is customer specific

• IT \ HARDWARE \ NOTEBOOK is customer specific

If you move IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER \ VIDEOCARD to another parent classification and allow the removal of redundant customer associations on the previous parent, you get the following results:

• The system considers only customers 2, 5 and 6, the customers of IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER \ VIDEOCARD.

• Customer 6 cannot be considered redundant because it is associated with the WEIGHT attribute on the previous parent classification IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER.

• Customer 5 cannot be considered redundant because it is associated with one of the children (IT \ HARDWARE \ NOTEBOOK) of the previous parent classification.

• Customer 2 is redundant because it is not associated with an attribute of the previous parent or any of its children. The Customer 2 association is removed from the IT \ HARDWARE \ DESKTOP COMPUTER classification.

• Customer 2 is also removed from classification IT \ HARDWARE because Customer 2 is not associated with any of its attributes (that classification has no attributes) or any of its other children (in this example there are no other children).

See also

Associate customers with children or attributes

Classification rules