Hi Urmila,
Thanks for your questions.
Is "level=1" is the only filter and use case you are trying to solve or there are other additional requirements? If yes , then can you please share them along with your hierarchy configuration?
Metadata security is generally useful when it is driven by user and user roles. Do you want to control these filters and hierarchy based on user and their roles?
You can apply relationship level filters for a specific profile in the relationship perspective to get filtered view of 1st degree(direct) relationships.
Regards,
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Abhradeep Sengupta
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