Considerations for Product Hierarchy

Access Rights and Visibility

At the category level, you can set access rights and define visibility. By assigning products to categories, you can control which Key Account Managers have access to specific products, thereby maintaining data security. Key Account Managers can create promotions and assortments only for the categories that they’re assigned to.

Promotion, Tactics, and Fund Planning

Align promotions, tactics, and funds with specific product levels to effectively target and manage them.

• Use categories to segment assortments and associate them with rate-based funds and customer business plans.
• When you create a Customer Business Plan (CBP), select one or more categories to ensure the CBP is targeted and relevant.
• Use category and brand levels for fund allocation.
• Enter product data at the product level, which is the lowest level in the product hierarchy.

Hierarchy Validity

The validity dates of a hierarchy determine which products or product groups are applicable within a specific time frame. To ensure that data is accurate and relevant, the system only considers the hierarchy levels that are valid for the entire duration of the promotion, account plan, or CBP.

Note A product can belong to only one parent category on a given day. For example, you can’t classify Empower Cola under both the Beverages Diet and the Beverages Zero flavors on the same day.

Data Aggregation

The hierarchical structure enables the aggregation and disaggregation of data from the individual product level to the hierarchy nodes in Profit and Loss (P&L) views and in Real-time Reporting.

Filters on the Manage Products Page

To filter products on the Manage Products page, enter the fields in the criterion information section of a product or product group. Make sure that you at least enter the fields for category and brand so that you can use the default filters on the Manage Products page.

The criterion information fields are static and don't change over time. Regularly review and update these fields, along with the product level field and make sure that they align with the product hierarchy defined in the Parent Product related list. The product hierarchy defined in the Parent Product related list can dynamically change over time.

Related Picklists

When you add or modify a product levels, related picklists aren’t automatically updated to reflect those changes. Manually update these related picklists to match the updated product levels:

• Product Aggregation Levels picklist in the Customer Template object: Determines the product hierarchy levels at which products are aggregated in the Account Plan P&L and the Customer Business Plan.
• Available Product Level picklist in the Customer Business Plan object: The values for this picklist are set based on the Customer Business Plan.
• Available Product Level picklist in the Promotion Template object: Determines the levels of product hierarchy that are available in the Promotion P&L page.
• Displayed Product Level picklist in the Promotion Template object: Determines the levels of product hierarchy that are visible in the Volume Planning Card and Spend Planning Card.
• Storage Levels picklist in the KPI Definition object: Determines the levels of product hierarchy that are defined as a writeback storage level for the respective KPI.