Organization hierarchies provide a structure for the relationships between the organizations within your enterprise. They enable you to manage expenditure and reporting data and coordinate project-owning organizations. If your organization uses business groups, you can create project burdening organization hierarchies for each business group.

You define an organization hierarchy by telling Oracle Projects which organizations are subordinate to which other organizations. You can define one organization hierarchy or several, depending on the needs of your enterprise.

There are two basic types of organization hierarchies: ordinary organization hierarchies and global organization hierarchies. To define an ordinary organization hierarchy, you use the Organization Hierarchy window. The organization hierarchy you define there appears in a list of values in the Implementation Options window.

If you have enabled Cross Business Group Access, you can define global organization hierarchies. Global organization hierarchies can contain organizations from any business group. To define a global organization hierarchy, you use the Global  Organization Hierarchy window. To access the Global Organization Hierarchy window, you must use a responsibility that is associated with a global security profile.

You can create as many organization hierarchies as you need for different reporting and processing needs, and you can create multiple versions of an organization hierarchy. Oracle Projects uses the hierarchy version to determine which organizations are used for reporting and processing.

You specify a start organization to indicate which branch of your organization hierarchy you want Oracle Projects to recognize as the top of your hierarchy for a particular purpose. If you want to use your entire organization hierarchy, your topmost organization (usually the business group) is the start organization.

The following organization hierarchy versions are assigned to each operating unit in Oracle Projects:

• A Project/Task Owning Organization hierarchy version is assigned to each operating unit.
• An Expenditure/Event Organization hierarchy version is assigned to each operating unit.
• A Default Reporting Organization Hierarchy Version is assigned to each operating unit. The hierarchy version can be overridden at reporting time.
• A Project Burdening Hierarchy Version is assigned to each business group.

If you currently use Oracle Human Resources, you can use existing hierarchies for Oracle Projects or create new hierarchies. If you do not currently use Oracle Human Resources, you must specify at least one hierarchy for Oracle Projects. You can change these organization hierarchy versions at any time.

2. Navigate to the Organizations window (Setup > Human Resources > Organizations > Define).

3. Define an organization or query organizations that you defined as a business group. You must define the hierarchy before you designate it as the project burdening hierarchy.
Note: Depending on your enterprise organization structure and business process, it is possible for the Project Burdening Hierarchy Version to be different from the Project/Task Organization Hierarchy Version, Expenditure/Event Organization Hierarchy Version, or Default Project Reporting Organization Hierarchy Version that you defined for any operating units associated with the business group. The Cost Distribution processes will not burden expenditures for expenditure organizations that are not in the Project Burdening Hierarchy.