In Zoho CRM's Reporting Hierarchy, you can set up the organization's hierarchial structure based on your user roles, and also you can assign users to appropriate reporting managers for a well-defined record accessibility. In this structure, a user is assigned a reporting manager who is entitled to view or access the user's data. Any member who is at a higher role than the user can be chosen as the reporting manager. You can also choose whether the non-reporting members of your organization are managed by any superior at a higher role or by the admin and/or super admin. This structure ensures controlled access of information within the organization, in part by ensuring that a user has only one reporting manager.
We will further discuss the reporting hierarchy structure in detail with a sample model of an organizational hierarchy.
Example: John Peters, the CEO of Zylker Inc., is in the administrative role and can access the entire organization's data. Under him are two Sales Managers, Amelia Burrows and Emily Ross. According to Zylker's organizational hierarchy, Sales Executives report to the Sales Managers, so each manager will have sales executives below her and will have access to their data. The VP of Sales, Mark Houston, is the non-reporting member in the organization, and his data will be accessible to John Peters.
Reporting hierarchy lets you define a user's data visibility. A user's reporting manager can be any person who occupies a higher role. Users who do not require a reporting manager can be retained as non-reporting members, and you can choose whether their data should be visible to any superior at higher role or the Super admin (CEO)/Administrator of the organization.
To enable Reporting Hierarchy
Once you define the reporting hierarchy structure for your organization, you are ready to choose reporting managers for the users. Any person who is at a superior role can be chosen as the user's reporting manager.
To assign reporting manager to a new user
To change the reporting manager of a user
Zoho CRM lets you view a user's reporting details with one click. The user information will display a user's reporting manager as well as subordinates (if applicable). This data will not be visible if the hierarchy preference is changed or disabled. Additionally, a non-reporting user's data will not be displayed.
To view reporting hierarchy
As an admin you can delete users from the CRM account. There are two conditions you should be aware of when deleting a user:
A) If the user does not have any subordinates reporting to them, you can delete the user account as it is.
B) If the user has subordinate members reporting to them, you can do either of the following:
To transfer subordinates
As an administrator, you can always alter the designations of the users or the roles in your organization's hierarchy structure. However, However, modifying users or roles will lead to several changes in the reporting hierarchy too. In the following examples, you will learn how to change the reporting hierarchy based on role modifications.
A) If a reporting manager's role is modified
When you change a reporting manager's role to different role in the hierarchy, modifications must be made in the reporting structure too. Following are some examples to elaborate such scenarios.
Case I
A person was a reporting manager for a few users but has now been demoted to a subordinate role. For instance, Amelia Burrows was a Sales Manager (EMEA) and Sales Executives Mark Snap and Liz Wiseman reported to her. If Amelia has not performed well and has been demoted, then Mark and Liz must be assigned a new reporting manager.
Case 2
A person was a reporting manager for a few users, but has now been promoted to a higher role. For instance, Amelia Burrows is a Sales Manager (EMEA) and reports to Mark Houston who is VP of Sales. If Amelia is promoted as VP of Sales, then her reporting manager must be changed.
Case 3
A person has changed roles but does not have any users reporting to them, so their role change will not affect the reporting structure. For instance, Allen Stack is VP of Marketing and does not have users reporting to him. If he is promoted or demoted, the role change will not affect the reporting structure for any subordinates. However, depending upon the changes to Allen's role, he may need to be assigned a reporting manager or he may be retained as a non-reporting member.
Case 4
A person was a reporting manager and has now been transferred to another branch or department. For instance, Emily Ross was a Sales Manager but has now transferred to the marketing branch as a Product Manager. Since, sales executive Jonathan Rose used to report to Emily Ross he must now be assigned a new reporting manager from the Sales branch.
To change roles and reporting manager
B) If a role is modified
When you add or remove a role from your organization's hierarchy, the reporting structure must be altered.
For instance, as we have seen, our sample company follows this basic hierarchy: CEO > Vice President of Sales > Sales Manager > Sales Executive. The following examples show some scenarios where changes to a role itself require that other changes be made as well
Case 1
Your organization has decided to eliminate the Sales Manager role entirely. For instance, if Amelia Burrows's Sales Manager role is deleted, then the Sales Executives Mark Snap and Liz Wiseman must be assigned a new reporting manager. Secondly, Amelia Burrows must be allotted a new role and reporting manager as well.
Case 2
If users are transferred to another branch in the organization, they must be assigned a reporting manager from the new hierarchy branch. For example, Fiona Williams is a product executive for EMEA and is now transferred to the sales executive role.
To modify a role
CRM records can be viewed and accessed only by the record owners and the superior's who are in the same branch. Reporting Hierarchy allows you to choose members from other branch with whom you want to share the data. You can set the permission rights as read/write or read-only.
To share records
In business, there are innumerable occasions where a superior's approval is required before finalizing an activity. Zoho CRM has enabled you to redirect such activities to a record owner's superior. In the reporting hierarchy, you can choose a record owner's reporting manager to perform these actions. Listed below are few instances where a reporting hierarchy brings significant changes:
In business, there may be many instances where a task needs a superior's approval before proceeding. For example, a sales rep offering a product discount or deciding to initiate a campaign may require approval from the sales manager. A reporting hierarchy allows you to assign the user's reporting manager as the approver for these kinds of activities.
To select reporting manager as approver
Send Alert
Zoho CRM lets you create sets of actions that help you automate sales and marketing activities. You can associate these actions with workflow rules, blueprints, and approval processes. One of the actions that can be directly associated with the reporting hierarchy is sending alerts. You can associate an alert with a workflow rule, so that the selected email is automatically sent to the recipients when the rule is triggered. In the reporting hierarchy, you can choose a record owner's reporting manager as one of the email recipients.
To send alerts to a reporting manager
A blueprint in Zoho CRM creates an online replica of your business process that helps you keep track of your business at different stages, which are called states.A link between two states, called a transition, is displayed in a record's detail page, with a list of actions necessary to complete the transition. Using a reporting hierarchy, you can designate a record owner's reporting manager to execute the actions and complete the transition process.
To assign reporting manager as transition owner
Forecasts
Forecasts enable you to track and fine-tune the sales process. They give a bird's-eye view of the sales pipeline and allow you to track your sales team's performance. In a reporting hierarchy, a user's reporting manager can be enabled to set forecasts for their reporting users. A user's reporting manager can set sales targets for the users and evaluate their team's performance.
To set targets in forecasts
Note
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