How to visually show hierarchical structure with inherited attributes

Question

In my system I have projects which each belong to one group. Groups can have sub groups and those can have more projects etc.

Projects consist of attributes. Attributes can be project specific or group attributes which may or may not be used by projects in that group. The group attributes can be used in sub groups also.

I am trying to come up with a view for the group attribute management. The view should offer the following

• Show the project hierarchy (groups & projects)
• Show which group attributes are available for each project
• Give possibility to attach/detach group attributes to/from project

Most problematic thing in composing this view is to give some visual clues on which group attributes are available and where as the group attributes are not available for sibling groups but are available for the sub groups.

So the question is: how to compose such view so that it hints to user which group attributes are available for attaching/detaching?

edit1 & 2:

This is what I have now:

This is drafted with excel but the real solution will be used in web UI.

Answer 1

My suggestion now below.

Group and project hierarchy on the left, group names bolded to show difference between group and project. From the group row you can see which group attributes exist for the group. From the project row you can see and maake activate/inactive the attributes for each project.

Borders added around group attributes to show the "visibility" of each attribute - i.e. for which projects it can be made active.

Cells not available for selection are grayed out (the group rows).

One could consider using some abbreviation for group attribute names to make the view more compact in case there are lots of items.