Units and segments

When implementing complex hierarchy structures, you decide about whether to configure certain fields as units, unit groups, or fields for segmentation (Event or Feedback fields). Most often, you should configure organizational elements as units and unit groups, while configuring data that is associated with respondents or interaction as segments. However, some cases might merit a more nuanced consideration.

This table lists functional differences between units and segments. Use the table to inform your architectural decisions, not dictate them. Ultimately, your decision of whether to use units or segments depends on an overall view of the organizational hierarchy, and how its pieces fit together. Your decisions are likely to be influenced by other considerations, such as frequency of changes, expected data quality, and alert assignment.

Note: OHF refers to Org hierarchy filtering.


Consideration	Hierarchy (without OHF)	Hierarchy (with OHF)	Segment (Choice set)	Segment (Indexed)
Needs pre-defined alternatives?	Yes (org file)	Yes (org file)	Yes	No
Can use name + ID pair?	Yes	Yes	No (limited to name, sequence number, value)	No
Able to associate metadata (Data fields)?	Yes	Yes	No	No
Data validation on import	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (though it is more difficult)
Data permissions?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Updates/changes	Easy	Difficult: Need to update org hierarchy unit fields (such as `e_unitid_org_hierarchy`) when updating records	Medium: Cannot change alt set sequence number	Difficult: Historical updates
Possible to update historical values?	Yes	Yes	Yes (difficult with enumerated values)	No
Profiler/columns dropdown?	No	No	Yes	No
Can associate with Medallia Social Feedback?	Yes: Units only	Yes: Units only	No	No
Medallia Text Analytics (topic set/sentiment assignment) support?	Yes	Yes	No	No
Translations?	Yes, though not recommended	Yes, though not recommended	Yes (alternative sets, only if used in survey)	No
Volume limit (performance impact)	>50,000	>50,000	Limit alternative set DBs	>300,000