Hierarchies

Hierarchies let you structure your data. When you display data in stories in a table, the nodes of the hierarchy can be expanded or collapsed.

Two types of hierarchy are available

Level-based hierarchies
A level-based hierarchy organizes the members of a dimension into levels, such as Country, State, and City.

You can add level-based hierarchies to generic dimensions and organization dimensions by selecting a dimension, and then from the Dimension Settings panel, selecting Create Hierarchy Level-Based Hierarchy.

You then define your level-based hierarchy in the Hierarchy Builder. Click to create a new hierarchy. Name it, and then select the dimension columns to use for creating the hierarchy. Select again to create more hierarchies. At any time, you can select the icon beside Hierarchies in the Dimension Settings panel to create, edit, and delete level-based hierarchies.
Parent-child hierarchies
A parent-child hierarchy organizes the members of a dimension into a set of parent-child relationships.

You can add parent-child hierarchies to generic dimensions and organization dimensions by selecting a dimension, and then from the Dimension Settings panel, selecting Create Hierarchy Parent-Child Hierarchy.

When you add a parent-child hierarchy, a new column is inserted into the grid. Add the parent ID values to the hierarchy column (). Select beside Hierarchies in the Dimension Settings panel to create more hierarchies.

To see a parent-child hierarchy's structure, open the Hierarchy Maintenance view by selecting one of your parent-child hierarchies in the Dimension Settings panel. Here, you can drag members to build the parent-child relationships visually. If more than one hierarchy has been defined, you can select which one to work with from the drop-down list.

See also Parent-child hierarchies with a subset of members.

Note

A dimension can have one or more level-based hierarchies, or one or more parent-child hierarchies, but not both.

Hierarchies in other dimension types

Other types of dimensions don't support custom hierarchies:

The Account dimension has only a single hierarchy.
For the Date dimension, hierarchies are predefined based on the model granularity, and whether you've enabled fiscal time for the model. You can specify a default hierarchy in the settings for the Date dimension.
The Version dimension doesn't have a hierarchy, since different versions are separate and don't have parent-child relationships.

Parent-child hierarchies with a subset of members

In some situations, you might want to create a parent-child hierarchy for a dimension, but not want to include all of the dimension members in the hierarchy. When you add a parent-child hierarchy to a dimension, an extra member is automatically added to the dimension, named “Not In Hierarchies” by default. Any members that you don't add to the hierarchy (that is, they don't have a value in the hierarchy column) are assigned as children of the “Not In Hierarchies” member.

Depending on which parent-child hierarchy is being shown in a table, different members will be under the “Not In Hierarchies” parent member.

For more information, see Entering Values with Multiple Hierarchies.

Note

If you remove a member from the hierarchy, that member and all of its descendants are moved to the “Not In Hierarchies” node, as a flat list. Any previously existing sub-trees are discarded.
If you delete a member from the dimension, and it has descendants in a parent-child hierarchy, the descendants are moved to the “Not In Hierarchies” node.
If you decide to assign all of the dimension members to all parent-child hierarchies, or delete all of the parent-child hierarchies, you can remove the “Not In Hierarchies” member by switching off Allow hierarchies with a subset of members in the Dimension Settings panel.
You can adjust the properties of the “Not In Hierarchies” member, except its position in the hierarchy (it's always assigned to root).

Managing hierarchies

You can view and manage your hierarchies by opening the Hierarchy Maintenance screen:

The Hierarchy Maintenance screen lets you manage hierarchies visually. It displays an icon () next to members that belong to the selected parent-child hierarchy. You can also use the All/In Use switch to display either all members of the dimension, or only members of the selected hierarchy.