Hierarchy builder and branching drill-down

The Hierarchy builder lets you draw your organization as a tree of units, such as regions, departments and teams, so you can aim Dynamic Assignments at a unit and see completion for each branch of the tree.

What it does

Build your organization chart

The builder adds People > Hierarchy, a page titled Organizational Hierarchy Chart. A new site starts with a Build your hierarchy prompt. From there you add units to the chart: a first unit, then a parent, child, or a unit before or after an existing one. Each unit has a name, a list of who belongs to it, and an accountable person or group. You can focus the chart on one branch, search units, and switch between the chart and an outline.

Who belongs to this unit? You choose how each unit gets its members:

• Profile Field — for example everyone whose Department is Finance. You can pick the values that belong to the unit.
• User Groups — pick one or more existing user groups.
• Custom Segments — build rules that combine user groups and profile fields.
• Team Reporting — follow team lead to team member reporting lines.

Who is accountable for this unit? Choose None, The unit above (inherit), This unit's members, Specific people or a Profile field. Accountable people are the ones Completion Tracking can nudge when a unit falls behind.

Where else the hierarchy is used

• Dynamic Assignments. The audience step gains an Organization unit rule, so you can assign to everyone in a unit.
• Completion Tracking. The dashboards can drill down through your units. A site that has no units yet sees an Add a hierarchy unit card that opens the builder.
• Reporting workbench. A Hierarchy memberships dataset lists every member of every unit, with the unit's path, so you can report on everyone under a given unit.

Branching drill-down in completion tracking

The second part of this feature changes how the Completion Tracking dashboards drill into your organization.

• Without it, the dashboard drills down one level at a time through a straight list of levels.
• With it, you choose a unit in a tree navigator, and the dashboard shows a card for each of that unit's direct child units. Each card totals the unit's whole branch, with completion shading so weak spots stand out. You move down branch by branch instead of level by level.
• For the unit you are viewing, an Accountability panel shows who is accountable and the escalation order. When a unit needs attention, you can Notify its accountable people or Escalate up to the people above, from a Send Message panel that fills in the unit's name, completion and overdue count for you.

Why admins switch it on

• Your organization chart lives in one place and is reused by assigning and reporting, instead of being rebuilt as groups for each use.
• Managers see completion for their own branch, and the totals add up through the tree.
• Accountability is built in, so late units have a named person to chase.

Before you switch it on

• Two parts, one choice. The builder and the branching drill-down are switched on separately. The drill-down reads the tree the builder creates, so it is only useful once you have built your units. Tell us if you want both.
• Without the builder, the rest is limited. Without it the Organization unit audience rule is not offered and the hierarchy dataset is not available. Opening the Hierarchy address directly shows "Hierarchy unavailable".
• Completion Tracking is separate. The drill-down changes the Completion Tracking dashboards, so it only matters on sites that have Completion Tracking switched on.
• Membership comes from data you already keep: profile fields, user groups and teams. Clean data gives clean units, and people can belong to more than one unit. 
• If you turn the branching drill-down off later, Completion Tracking goes back to the straight level-by-level list. Your units are kept. 

Related optional features

• Dynamic Assignments — use a unit as the audience for a Dynamic Assignment.
• Completion tracking dashboards — the reports the branching drill-down changes.