# About Folders

Folders are the containers in an account hierarchy. They can represent departments, cost centers, office locations, types of employees, or any other categorization of accounts that would be useful to an organization.

| Note | Within MetraNet, a folder is really just a type of account; you manage (create, edit and move) folders in the same way you do accounts.

Folders not only help account administrators locate accounts in Account Manager, but also:

- Allow usage and cost information to remain confidential, viewable only to folder owners (see About Folder Ownership)

- Facilitate subscribing the appropriate product offerings to the appropriate accounts (See About Account Templates)

- Facilitate updating account information with contact and default security information (See About Account Templates)

- Play an important role in accounting and budgeting, by making costs viewable by cost center

| Note | As with a Windows directory, there is no limit to how many folders can nest within other folders.

## Folder Placement in an Account Hierarchy

Generally, an account hierarchy's folder structure should follow a company's organizational chart (possible exceptions to this are listed below). For example, a simplified company department structure might look like this:

The same departments in a MetraNet account hierarchy would look like this:

| Note | The label on a folder is the First and Last Name fields entered in the Account Information page. To change the folder's label, just edit these fields. If the Name fields are blank, the label is the username entered when the folder was created.

## Considerations when Setting up a Hierarchy

When setting up a hierarchy or maintaining an existing one, consider the following:

Consideration | Features/Tools/ Software Impacted | Details | Example
Cost Center Visibility | MetraView Online Invoices, Reports; General Ledger and Accounting Software | Managers and accounting personnel need to be able to view costs by cost center. Each folder potentially appears in reports as a cost center, with its own summarized usage and cost information. | A segment of a Marketing department deals with overseas customers. This segment does not have its own department, however its costs are high. Therefore, accounting wants to track its costs separately from the rest of the department. To track this, the account administrator might create a subfolder under the Marketing department's folder ("European Sales") and then add the relevant Marketing accounts to this subfolder.
Product Offering Subscriptions | Account Templates, Account Subscriptions | Folder structure can impact which subscriptions are recommended for an account when it is moved to a new folder (or created in the folder). There may be situations where an Account Administrator creates a folder simply for purposes of having product subscriptions suggested for certain types of employees. | Example One: An American client company wants all of its European sales reps to get low rates for calling Europe. Even though these sales reps don't constitute their own department, an account administrator might create a European Sales folder and add the low rate plan to the folder's account template. This would ensure that all accounts moved to this folder would have the same low rate suggested by the new folder's account template. Example Two: A service provider might have product offerings specifically for executive employees. These executives may not actually be part of the same department. However, they are the same type employee for purposes of subscription qualification. An account administrator might create an Executive folder with an account template suggesting the appropriate Executive product offering subscriptions.
Confidentiality and Company Reporting Structure | Folder Ownership (MetraView Online Invoices, Reports) | The folder structure should restrict the viewing of usage and cost information to the appropriate managers. | A large department has several different types of employees. None of these types constitutes its own department. However, different managers need access to different sets of usage and cost information within the department.
Ease of Updating Account Contact Information | Account Templates, Account Contact Information | A folder's account template also suggests account contact information. An account administrator could create a subfolder with different contact information than its parent folder. This would make entry of contact information for accounts easier and less error prone. | A single department might be located at two addresses. The department might have the same manager and also be considered under the same cost center. However, they have separate addresses. To ensure that an account template updates new and newly moved accounts with the right addresses, an account administrator might create a separate folder with different contact info suggested by the folder's account template.
Ease of Updating Account Security Information | Account Templates, Account Capabilities | A folder's account template suggests capabilities. An account administrator could create a subfolder with different default account capabilities than its parent folder. | The Finance department wants only a certain set of employees to receive the capability to see all usage information for all accounts. An account administrator could create a subfolder within the finance. They could then set the folder's account template to suggest the capability required to see all accounts.
Ease of Locating Accounts | Account Hierarchy, Hierarchy Browsing | Although a folder may not be necessary for any of the above reasons, splitting a large department into two or more folders within a department may make account location easier. | You might have a large Marketing department located on two floors. Creating two subfolders within the Marketing department folder (one for each floor) could make it easier for account administrators to locate specific accounts within the company account hierarchy.

## See Also

Folder Ownership