---
title: "Parameter Levels"
canonical: "https://docs.vaultspeed.com/space/VPD/3013574682/Parameter%20Levels"
format: markdown
---
Every parameter has a **Parameter Level**.  This value determines the lowest level at which you can change a parameter.  

## Parameter Hierarchy

The following parameter levels exist:

![image](media://e66b0944-e13e-4e09-8c16-a6b705b17ed7)

For example, a Parameter Level ‘SOURCE’ means that this parameter can be set differently for the System, each Project, and each Source.  Changing parameters at a certain Level will propagate this change to all the lower Levels, e.g. changing the value of Parameter ‘HASHDIFF_ESCAPE_CHARACTER’ on System Level will also change the parameter value on both Project and Source Level.  It is still possible however to overwrite the value at the lower level if needed.

A good general practice is to take your most common set of parameters and set them at the highest level possible.  And for any specific cases, you can overwrite these settings at the lower levels.

![image](media://9e368fcf-4018-4a9d-a483-97db61ecb6ee)


The level for each parameter can be found in the System Parameters in the ‘Parameter Level’ column:

![image](media://239cdc40-9fe3-4df9-af24-39f3a585a58b)

> ℹ️ On lower Levels (PROJECT, SOURCE, TAB_SRC, DV), the parameters screens only show the parameters which can be changed on this level or lower.

## Lock Flags

Changing a parameter will automatically turn on the ‘Lock Flag’ (eg: Overwrite lock, project specific, source specific, …).  This will prevent the value of this parameter on this level to be overwritten by a parameter change on a higher level.

> 📝 You can even set the ‘Lock Flag’ without changing the value of the parameter.

![image](media://dd4cf26d-bc35-46da-8393-3fc3c75c7113)


Example:

If you already changed a certain parameter at Source level (it will be propagated to the lower object level), the ‘Lock Flag’ for that parameter will be on at SOURCE level, meaning it can’t be overwritten anymore by a change on a higher level.  If you change the value of the same parameter at SYSTEM level, the change will propagate down to PROJECT level (because there is no ‘Lock Flag’ set there), but it won’t overwrite the settings you did on SOURCE level because the ‘Lock Flag’ is on there.

![image](media://0534b8d2-daf7-48fc-8c7c-9c1cd7b51408)

> 📝 Turning off the ‘Lock Flag’ will restore a parameter automatically to the default VaultSpeed value.

## Parameter Dependencies

Dependencies between parameters do exist.  Parameters that are not available will be greyed out.  They also have a warning symbol at the front with a tooltip text (if you hover your mouse over them) indicating why they are not available at the moment.

Sometimes it’s just enough to change a related parameter to make a certain other parameter become available.

It is also possible that, when changing parameters, certain other settings become invalid.  If a Parameter contains an invalid value because they conflict with other settings, they will be highlighted.   
VaultSpeed will automatically indicate where those errors can be found and through the warning symbol and tooltip you can see how you could solve the error.

![image](media://6d092952-6230-47dd-93f4-69bf98f0c6de)