A class hierarchy shows how a class is associated with a parent class. This is a way of associating similar classes and allowing attributes to be inherited. It also defines the types of containers in which the class is valid.
The schema has several attributes and classes and a fundamental class hierarchy. (To view the current class hierarchy, click Object > Class Manager and see Class Manager.)
When creating a new class, the network supervisor can use the class hierarchy and the additional attributes available to customize each class. The supervisor can specify an inheritance class (which will allow the new class to inherit all of the attributes and flags of a class higher in the hierarchy) and can then customize the new class by selecting one or more attributes to add to those which were inherited. The additional attributes can be selected as mandatory, naming, or optional attributes.
Network supervisors can also modify existing classes by adding optional attributes.