Flexible Hierarchies
Visualize and manage complex business structures with Flexible Hierarchies. Unlike rigid, one-size-fits-all structures, this feature helps you to model data through a multi-layered approach that adapts to different business needs. Whether you’re mapping global corporate conglomerates, intricate banking branch networks, or cross-object sales territories, Flexible Hierarchies gives you the tools to transform flat data into useful insights.
Required Editions
Available in: Lightning Experience Available in: Unlimited and Agentforce Editions |
Important Turning on Flexible Hierarchies in Government Cloud Plus organizations
can send data outside the authorization boundary. Contact your Salesforce account executive
for more details.
Flexible Hierarchies help users visualize intricate business structures, enabling them to identify growth opportunities, monitor performance, ensure compliance, and many strategic business objectives. Review these common use cases to understand how flexible hierarchies can support your business goals.
- Banking Relationship Management: Identify wallet share and white-space opportunities by visualizing corporate groups. Use hierarchies to ensure full coverage across parent companies and their subsidiaries.
- Insurance Agency Management: Track key performance indicators, including premiums, claims, and commissions, at the individual rep or agency level.
- Asset Management Distribution: Monitor fund flows, sales data, and intermediary engagement to optimize distribution strategies across your organization.
To optimize your experience, it’s important to understand the three distinct personas that collaborate to build and use flexible hierarchies.
- Hierarchy Admin: Admins define the structural blueprint by creating hierarchy types and configuring node displays. Additionally, they validate hierarchies when required.
- Hierarchy Manager: Managers create and update hierarchies by using relevant hierarchy types in the hierarchy builder.
- Hierarchy User: Users view hierarchies on object record pages to analyze data and make strategic decisions. For example, a fund manager views a hierarchy to monitor fund flows, sales data, and intermediary engagement to optimize distribution strategies.
Before you get started, understand the end-to-end workflow and the key steps involved.
| Category | Action | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Create Hierarchy Configuration | Enable Flexible Hierarchies | Hierarchy Admin |
| Create a hierarchy type | Hierarchy Admin | |
| Create or Update Hierarchies | Create a flexible hierarchy by using a hierarchy type in the hierarchy builder. | Hierarchy Manager |
| Create or import hierarchies by using APIs | Hierarchy Admin | |
| Validate Hierarchies | Validate a hierarchy by using the quick action or API | Hierarchy Admin |
| Access Hierarchies | View flexible hierarchies and derive useful insights | Hierarchy User |
- Flexible Hierarchies Data Model
The Flexible Hierarchies data model includes Flexible Hierarchy and related objects to create and manage hierarchies according to your business requirements. - Flexible Hierarchies Overview
Flexible Hierarchies provide a dynamic way to visualize, manage, and analyze complex business relationships. Get to know the key elements of Flexible Hierarchies. - Flexible Hierarchies, Actionable Relationship Center, and Account Hierarchies
Evaluate the various visualization tools available to address complex data relationships. This comparison provides the insights necessary to align the appropriate solution with your organizational goals, whether your requirements prioritize standard relationship mapping or need the time-bound, multi-layered flexibility of a custom framework. - Visualization Formats for Flexible Hierarchies
Discover how to leverage Graph and Grid views, navigate via exploratory and search modes, and use advanced viewing capabilities to gain intelligent insights from Flexible Hierarchies. - Enable Flexible Hierarchies
To create and update hierarchy types and hierarchies, and view hierarchies on record pages, turn on Flexible Hierarchies in Setup. - Setup and Configuration of Flexible Hierarchies
Assign user permissions and object permissions, set the Tab visibility, define picklist values for the role field, and configure sharing settings. Create hierarchy types and customize record pages to view hierarchies. - Setup and Configuration of Summary Rollups in Flexible Hierarchies
Turn on the org preference, and configure hierarchy types to establish your metric types. Then, customize Data Processing Engine definitions, and create a flow to orchestrate the calculations. - Create Flexible Hierarchies
As a hierarchy manager, you can create flexible hierarchies for specific data by using hierarchy types. Your hierarchy admin must first create the necessary hierarchy types before you can create these flexible hierarchies. - Example: Create a Contact Hierarchy for an Organization
Explore a practical example of creating a contact hierarchy for Cumulus Corporation, including specific details on nodes and their relationships to model the complex organizational structure. Review the comprehensive instructions to implement the hierarchy by using the hierarchy builder, Data Loader, or API methods, ensuring flexibility for both manual management and high-volume data integrations. - Explore the Predefined Data Processing Engine Definition for Flexible Hierarchy Summary Rollup
Explore a practical example of analyzing the predefined Data Processing Engine definition, Roll Up Account and Contact Opportunities With Data Cloud. Included with Flexible Hierarchies, this definition rolls up opportunity amounts linked to account and contact nodes. - Considerations and Best Practices for Creating Flexible Hierarchies
Manage node statuses, resolve validation errors, review best practices, and considerations for flexible hierarchies. - View Flexible Hierarchies
View flexible hierarchies in the Graph view or the Grid view on the hierarchy details page.
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