Regular rules for creating client groups can be modified by a list of explicitly set rules. A manual override rule is always related to a concrete record identified by its unique primary key. Each rule has a primary key of record and eventually another primary key of a parent record.

Types of Manual Override Rules

The manual override rules are:

• R->C. Record has to be in its own group. The record is not assigned to any group. It forms a new one-member group, and its unification role is O (overridden center).
• C+R. Record has to be assigned to another group. The record is assigned to the group to which its parent belongs.
• C+C. Group has to be appended to another group. The whole group to which the record has been assigned is appended to the group to which its parent belongs.

For example, the rule {C+R,1234,4321} (rule of type C+R for record with primary key 1234 and parent record with primary key 4321) specifies that record 1234 always belongs to the same client group as record 4321, even if they are not in a common candidate group.

The manual override rules are contained in the repository. You can edit them using the Manual Override Builder or Incremental Manual Override Builder.

One exception during processing of the rules C+R or C+C (which are related to a parent record) applies when the parent record is not found. In that case, there is no way to assign the record to a client group. The record is marked as an orphan. The orphans make up a stand-alone client group (one-member in the case of C+R, multi-members for C+C), and its center record takes the unification role O (overridden center). The same case occurs if the manual override rules cause a cycle in dependency on parents.

Moreover, for rules of type C+C, the parent record of the rule can belong to the same group as the record whose group has to be appended. In other words, the rule specifies that the group should be appended to itself, and consequently the rule is meaningless. In this "self parent" case, this group remains unchanged but its center record takes the unification role O (overridden center).

The records obtain the special mark Manual Override Role, specifying if and how they were affected by the manual override rules.

The manual override roles are:

• N. Normal (unaffected by any rule).
• O. Affected by a rule.
• P. Parent of a rule and not assigned to another parent.
• S. Orphan.