Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 2
Concept of Node Hierarchies .................................................................................................................. 2
Workflow Hierarchy ............................................................................................................................ 2
Consultation Hierarchy ........................................................................................................................ 3
Node Hierarchies set-up in the SFC2014 system .................................................................................... 4
Requesting Node Hierarchy changes .................................................................................................. 4
Current Node Hierarchies.................................................................................................................... 4
SFC2014 Node Hierarchies
Introduction
This document describes the concept of Nodes and their Hierarchies, and shows the current Node
Hierarchy set-up as implemented in the SFC2014 system for the period 2014-2020. It also defines a
procedure for requesting eventual changes.
Concept of Node Hierarchies
Depending on the political/geographical organisation of each country, a Member State can manage
business objects, in the context of the SFC2014 application, in a centralised or decentralised manner.
To represent all the Member States and the possible decentralisations inside each Member State, the
notion of a Node has been introduced. A Node is a collection of users, representing the Commission,
a Member State, a regional or a local Authority. Countries with a centralised management structure
will only have a single Node, while other countries with a more decentralised structure could have a
lot of them. Each user of the system can have one or more user profiles, each giving access to a
specific node.
Commission (EC)
National Ministry (.XX)
Regional Authority1 (..XX1)
Regional Authority2 (..XX2)
Regional Authority3 (..XX3)
The Nodes are organised into a tree hierarchy. The root represents the Commission Node while the
leaves represent Member States, regions or local authorities Nodes.
The SFC2014 system has two Node Hierarchies, one dedicated to the consultation of objects, and one
for workflow operations on the objects. Each Node is defined in both Hierarchies.
For a number of Member States, the hierarchical structure is different when it concerns data
manipulation or data consultation. Therefore, the system distinguishes between a Workflow
Hierarchy and a Consultation Hierarchy.
Workflow Hierarchy
The Workflow Hierarchy indicates the workflow to be followed to submit a given object (OP,
Payment Request, etc.) from the Node having initiated the operation to the European Commission
Node. It determines where an object can be manipulated and where it is sent to or rejected to.
In fact, workflow actions can only be performed against an object in the Node where it currently
resides. An object moves from Node to Node as defined by the Workflow Hierarchy. When a user
working on his node is ready with updating the object, he will send the object to the upper Node,
where it will become available for the users defined on that upper Node. The different actions
allowed against an object are in function of the status of the object and are in a logical order, Create
 Edit  Validate  Send. An object might also be Returned from an upper Node to a lower Node,
if updates are to be done by a user from the authority on that lower Node.
Example: Workflow Hierarchy
Node
Title
.DEB
Germany (ERDF+CF)
..DEB02
Hamburg
An Operational Programme could be created, edited, validated in a regional Node in Germany DEB02 (land of Hamburg), but then need to be sent to the national-level Node DEB (federal German
authority for ERDF+CF), where it can be edited and validated again (if necessary), before being
officially sent to the European Commission Node (EC). Therefore, the Workflow Hierarchy shows a
branch from DEB02 over DEB to EC. If the regional Node DEB02 would need to have the authority to
directly send the OP to the Commission, without the need for the national authority to validate or
update the data, then the DEB02 Node would have to be directly linked to the Commission Node EC in
the Workflow Hierarchy.
Consultation Hierarchy
The Consultation Hierarchy determines which Nodes can consult the objects being created in the
system. An object can be consulted in any node which lies on the branches between the object
creation Node and the Commission Node. This means that a Node can always consult objects that
where created in his lower Nodes as defined in the Consultation Hierarchy.
Example: Consultation Hierarchy
Node
.FRAEG
..FRAER
...FRADC
....FR1GA
....FR1GY
Title
France RP - Politique régionale
SGAE - TREG
DIACT-MINOM-MIAT-DGEFP-MINEFI-CICC
Guadeloupe
Guyane
Users in the node FRAEG (central node for France – Politique régionale) can consult all the "objects"
present in all French regional Nodes below. But a user in the regional node, e.g. FR1GA (Guadeloupe),
cannot consult objects that are created in another regional node like FR2GY (Guyane).
The Consultation Hierarchy will be different from the Workflow Hierarchy for those countries were
the decentralised Nodes have the authority to directly send objects to the Commission, while the
national authority still needs to have a view on all objects managed in the Member State.
Example: Different Consultation and Workflow Hierarchies
Workflow Hierarchy
Node
Title
.UK
United Kingdom
.UK01
Northern-Ireland
Consultation Hierarchy
Node
Title
.UK
United Kingdom
..UK01
Northern-Ireland
Users from the regional node UK01 (Northern-Ireland) can submit objects directly to the Commission,
since in the Workflow Hierarchy, the regional node .UK01 is at the top level for the country (depicted
with a single dot '.'). However the users at the national authority's node, UK (United Kingdom), may
still consult all the documents created on the UK01 node, since in the Consultation Hierarchy, the
..UK01 is set as at the sub-level of the UK node (depicted with two dots '..')
Node Hierarchies set-up in the SFC2014 system
In the SFC2014 system for the 2014-2020 period, the Node Hierarchies were initially set up as the
ones for the 2007-2013 period. They have since been updated to reflect the current management
and organisational structures of the Member States in order to accommodate regional management
and territorial cooperation programmes. For new Member States or other countries entering the
SFC2014 system and for those whose political or organisational structures have been changed,
another hierarchy can be implemented on demand.
Requesting Node Hierarchy changes
The request for changes to the existing node hierarchies has to be done as follows:
(1)
An E-mail has to be send by the MS liaison to the SFC2014 Support service: [email protected]
The request must contain:
– The existing nodes (see lists below) and the codes and names for the new nodes, including:
o Code of the node – max. 5 characters (letters & numbers), e.g. FRAEG
o Title of the node – short description of the node, e.g. France RP - Politique régionale
– The hierarchy levels and sub levels (please refer to Concept of Node Hierarchies) and the
differences in workflow and consultation hierarchy, if any.
– If existing, the Operational programmes (by CCI) to be moved from the existing nodes to the
new nodes.
(2) After analysis of feasibility by the SFC2014 Team, the requested change will be applied in
SFC2014 and the MS liaison will be informed. This process takes max 1 working week.
NOTE: If the change involves creation of a new node, it is the responsibility of the MS liaison to
request appropriate user access to that node.
Current Node Hierarchies
See the latest list of Consultation and Workflow Node Hierarchies: sfc2014_nodes_and_hierarchies