Enterprise Territory Management account assignment rules for life sciences accounts
Key Takeaway
Select "Apply to child territories" on a parent territory's account assignment rule, and its child territories inherit the rule's criteria, such as state. The child territories' own rules then only need to add narrower criteria, such as ZIP codes.
Account assignment rules let Salesforce place accounts into territories automatically. You define account field criteria for each territory. Salesforce assigns the matching accounts, so no one has to assign every account by hand. In a Life Sciences Cloud org, batch jobs and life sciences records build on those territory assignments. Together they give field reps access to the right healthcare provider accounts, including in the mobile app.
Locally defined and inherited rules
An account assignment rule stores the characteristics that define a territory as account field criteria. Salesforce assigns accounts with those characteristics to that territory.
A territory can have two kinds of rules. Locally defined rules are associated at that territory. Inherited rules were created higher in the territory hierarchy with "Apply to child territories" selected.
When a parent territory's rule has "Apply to child territories" selected, its child territories inherit the rule. The child territories don't need to repeat the parent's criteria, such as state. Their own rules only add narrower criteria, such as ZIP code or industry.
Your org has a parent territory called Cardiology. Its rule says Primary_Specialty__c equals Cardiology, and "Apply to child territories" is selected. Under it sit two child territories, Cardiology Hospitals and Cardiology Clinics. Each child territory's rule only checks the account type: Hospital for one, Clinic for the other. Neither child territory repeats the specialty criterion, because both inherit it from Cardiology.
A territory with no inherited or locally defined rules contains only accounts that were associated manually.
Don't assign a rule separately to child territories when the rule already has "Apply to child territories" selected. Also, don't assign a rule to a territory when it's a child of a rule already assigned there. The "Assignment Rules Assigned to this Territory" related list shows which rules already apply to a territory.