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Defining Territory Rules

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Define territory rules.

Territory Rules

Rules can be used to manage automatic alignments and coverages, as well as overlays.

Alignments for accounts and products can also be set up manually. These processes are outlined in detail in Lesson 5 and Lesson 6.

Adding account alignment rules for a territory

Account alignment rules are the criteria used to assign specific accounts to a territory, effective for a given period. The alignment rules criteria can consist of a combination of geographies, accounts, and account custom attributes to determine which accounts are aligned with a territory. Administrators can create the rules and Managers can edit the rules, based on their permissions.

Add an Account Alignment Rule

Steps

Navigate to Territory Admin → Territory Programs and select the territory program to which the territory you’re aligning accounts belongs. The Territory Program will open to the Territory Tree.
From the Territory Tree, select the Territory for which you want to add the rule.
From the territory pane on the right, select the Alignments tab and then the Rules tab.
Select the Accounts radio button.
Choose Create () to add a new rule. The Create Rule screen opens to the Rule Details tab.
Required: enter a Rule Name.
Enter a Rule Type, a text field that contains details about the rule, such as accounts covered, area covered, etc.
Enter a Description for the rule and what it is meant to do.
Rule Priority: allows you to set the order in which rules should be executed. Rules are executed starting with a Priority of 1 and then in increasing order of their priority values.
Apply to Children: select if you wish this rule to apply to child accounts, which will be aligned when a child account matches the rule criteria.
Alignment Properties can be used to further categorize the qualified accounts (the accounts that meet the rule criteria). For example, if you have a primary sales rep that handles their own territory the Alignment Property could be "Primary" to categorize the accounts being aligned with that rep. Within the same territory there may be a sales specialist assigned as a secondary rep compensated at a different rate, and their Alignment Property could be "Secondary."
Select the Rule Definition tab to define the rule. You can add one or more criteria to filter the accounts for alignment. You can also add groups of rules by choosing Add Rule Group ().
Select your rule operator: AND or OR. If you choose AND, each criterion in the group must be true for the account to be selected. If you choose OR, any of the criteria in the group can be true for the account to be selected.
Alignment: select either Account or Geography. Your selection determines which attributes are available next.
Attribute: select the account or geography field you’ll be using for the filter.
Select the rule Operator from the list: equals, not equal to, contains, and not contains.
Enter the Value for the criterion.
Choose Create () to add a new criterion or Add Rule Group () to create a new group.
Save your changes when the rule is defined.

Editing Rules and Creating Alignment Rules

You can check your rule by choosing Refresh Rule Summary (). This will show you how many accounts will be impacted but will not actually align the accounts.

To edit the rule choose Edit Rule () to the right of the rule name. You may need to scroll right if you don’t see the edit icon.

To learn how to create alignment rules, watch this video:

Let’s look at an example. In the image below, Bikes in Motion will use a rule to automatically align accounts to the US East territory using the state as criteria. Beginning by selecting the Rules tab in the Alignments pane, we first created a new rule called US East. In the rule definition, we can then add criteria for each state. Notice that this definition will align all accounts in the US states of Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to the territory.

Adding product alignment rules for a territory

Another way to use rules for territory alignment is to use products instead of accounts. Product alignment rules criteria can consist of a combination of products and product custom attributes to determine which products are aligned with a territory. Administrators can create the rules and Managers can edit the rules, based on their permissions.

Add a Product Alignment Rule

Steps

Navigate to Territory Admin → Territory Programs and select the territory program to which the territory you’re aligning products belongs. The Territory Program view will open to the Territory Tree.
From the Territory Tree, select the Territory for which you want to add the rule.
From the territory pane on the right, select the Alignments tab and then the Rules tab.
Select the Products radio button.
Choose Create () to add a new rule. The Create Rule screen opens to the Rule Details tab.
Required: enter a Rule Name.
Enter a Rule Type, a text field that contains details about the rule, such as products covered, area covered, etc.
Enter a Description for the rule and what it is meant to do.
Rule Priority: allows you to set the order in which rules should be executed. Rules are executed starting with a Priority of 1 and then in increasing order of their priority values.
Apply to Children: select if you wish this rule to apply to child products, which will be aligned when a child product matches the rule criteria.
Alignment Properties: can be used to further categorize the qualified products (the products that meet the rule criteria).
Select the Rule Definition tab to define the rule. You can add one or more criteria to filter the products for alignment. You can also add groups of rules by choosing Add Rule Group ().
Select your rule operator: AND or OR. If you choose AND, each criterion in the group must be true for the product to be selected. If you choose OR, any of the criteria in the group can be true for the product to be selected.
Alignment: select either Account or Geography. Your selection determines which attributes are available next.
Attribute: select the account or geography field you’ll be using for the filter.
Select the rule Operator from the list: equals, not equal to, contains, and not contains.
Enter the Value for the criterion.
Choose Create () to add a new criterion or Add Rule Group () to create a new group.
Save your changes when the rule is defined.

Checking and Editing Rules

You can check your rule by choosing Refresh Rule Summary (). This will show you how many products will be impacted but will not actually align the products.

To edit the rule choose Edit Rule () to the right of the rule name. You may need to scroll right if you don’t see the edit icon.

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