Moving Concepts and Creating Additional Relations by Drag and Drop
18/09/2026
Graph Modeling allows you to intuitively drag and drop concepts into different hierarchy levels in the taxonomy tree. Not only can you move a concept into a different place in the tree, but you can also easily create polyhierarchical relations using drag and drop.
Note
A skos:Concept and a skos:ConceptScheme are separate components in the SKOS data structure. Broader and narrower relations between concepts describe hierarchical structures between entities. Concept schemes, on the other hand, function as containers or aggregators, which means they cannot be moved to another position in the hierarchy.
Moving a concept in SKOS means deprecating the old skos:broader/skos:narrower relation and creating a new relation with a target concept. You can move a concept from one place in the hierarchy to another using the following two methods:
Drag and drop in the taxonomy tree: Expand the tree and then drag and drop a node on top of another node. The dragged node will then become the child node of the target node.
Drag and drop in Details View: Open a target node, and then drag and drop another concept from the tree into the target node's...
...Broader Concepts field to make it the target concept's broader concept.
...Move side of the Narrower Concepts field (which will be highlighted as soon as you drag a concept from the taxonomy tree) to make it the target concept's narrower concept.
When the target node is a concept scheme, the Move side appears in the Top Concepts field instead. In this case, the dragged concept becomes a top concept inside that concept scheme.
Important
You can select multiple concepts and move them to a different position using drag and drop. For more information on how to enter multiselection mode, refer to our guide on Bulk Operations.
A concept can have several different broader concepts. Instead of moving a concept you can add a concept to a new place in the taxonomy (create a new skos:broader/skos:narrower relation) without removing it from its old position. This results in a polyhierarchy in your taxonomy. You can create additional relations in two ways:
Drag and drop in the taxonomy tree: Expand the tree and then drag, hold Shift, and drop a concept onto another concept in the tree. The dragged concept becomes the target concept's narrower concept while remaining in the current position in the hierarchy. The dragged concept now has an additional broader concept.
Note
While dragging a concept and holding Shift, the icon next to your cursor (
) will indicate that you are about to create an additional relation.
Drag and drop in Details View: Open a target node, and then move another concept from the tree into the Create Additional Relation sub-field of the Narrower Concepts field, which appears as soon as you drag a node from the taxonomy tree.
When the target node is a concept scheme, the Additional Relation sub-field appears in the Top Concepts field instead. In this case the dragged concept becomes a top concept inside that concept scheme.
Note
When a concept is selected, a concept scheme can be dragged into the target concept's Top Concept of Concept Schemes field. Doing so will add the selected concept to that concept scheme, in addition to whatever concept scheme it is already a part of.