Hierarchy Levels

A Hierarchy is a collection of hierarchy levels. Each hierarchy level defines a kind of profile that an agency has. Hierarchies allow the agency to set up which kinds of profiles it has in its business model. These “kinds” are the levels in the hierarchy.

The Universal API supports two types of hierarchies: Agency and Account.

• The Agency hierarchy defines the agency's business model. The Agency hierarchy comprises the following levels: Agency, Branch Group(s), Work Area Branch, and Agent.

• The Account hierarchy defines the agency's corporate accounts, and allows agencies to set up each account according to that customer's business model. The Account Hierarchy comprises the following levels: Account, Traveler Group(s), and Traveler.

With few exceptions, each specific profile is associated to one of these levels (directly or indirectly). Within each agency’s (or account’s) hierarchy, certain types of profiles (and thus certain levels in the hierarchy) will be required. These required types of profiles are “anchor points” – Agency, Branch, Agent, Account, Traveler. Group profile types (i.e., Agency Group, Branch Group, and Traveler Group) represent the extended/flexible hierarchy. The hierarchy levels are also used to house the templates associated to the profiles at each hierarchy level.

Individual profiles are associated to a hierarchy level, which identifies which type or kind of profile it is, and, indirectly, which template is used to display the profile. Hierarchy levels are associated to each other in parent-child relationships. The parent-child relationship of hierarchy levels constrains but does not determine the parent-child relationships of the profiles associated to the hierarchy levels.

Note that on the Universal Desktop GUI, "hierarchy" refers to the relationships among profiles themselves, i.e., it refers to the profile hierarchy, not to the types of profiles. The GUI does not directly present hierarchy levels. Instead, it merges the presentation of templates and hierarchy levels, so users think they're editing the templates even when the attributes they are modifying are attributes of the hierarchy levels, and users will think of defining relationships among templates when in fact they are defining relationships among hierarchy levels.

Hierarchy Levels and Templates

• Travelport will define one System Template for each kind of profile: Agency Group, Agency, Branch Group, Branch, Agent, Account, Traveler Group, Traveler.

• The hierarchy levels will, upon creation, be assigned a “default template.” This template is a copy/clone of the relevant System Template.

Common Functions and Rules

There is a separate Agency Hierarchy and Account Hierarchy, each with multiple hierarchy levels.

• Each agency profile has its own agency hierarchy/levels.

• Each account profile its own account hierarchy/levels.

The Agency Hierarchy must contain the anchor points of Agency, Branch, Agent. This hierarchy can be customized by adding one or more levels of Branch Group between Agency and Branch.

The Account Hierarchy must contain the anchor points of Account, Traveler. This hierarchy can be customized by adding one or more levels of Traveler Group between Account and Traveler.

Universal API will not provide an external web service to create the anchor points of a hierarchy. Those levels will be auto-generated by the system at time of provisioning an agency or creating an account profile.™

The following rules apply for relationships of hierarchy levels.

Hierarchy Level	Number of Parent Levels	Parent Hierarchy Level	Number of Children Levels	Child Hierarchy Level
Agency Group	0	None	1	Agency
Agency	0 or 1	None or Agency Group, if one exists	1	Branch Group or Work Area Branch
Branch Group	1	Branch Group or Agency	1	Branch Group or Work Area Branch
Work Area Branch	1	Branch Group or Agency	1	Agent
Agent	1	Work Area Branch	0	None
Account	0	None	1	Traveler Group or Traveler
Traveler Group	1	Traveler Group or Account	1	Traveler Group or Account
Traveler	1	Traveler Group or Account	0	None