Screen Area: Universal Display Hierarchy

In the Universal Display Hierarchy screen area of the General tab, you can specify whether characteristics are displayed hierarchically in the rows or columns, and up to which level in this display hierarchy data is read. This can be significant in terms of performance.

Note that the display hierarchy always relates to the current query definition.

Example

For example, if you have the characteristics country, federal state and city in the rows and you do not select the option Universal Display Hierarchy, the system reads all the data for all characteristics in the drilldown when the query is executed.

Without Universal Display Hierarchy
Country	Federal State	City	Sales
A	AA	AAA	100
	AA	AAB	100
	Total		200
B	BA	BBA	50
		BBB	50
		BBC	100
	Total		200
C	CA	CCA	50
C	Total		50
Total			450

However, if you choose the option Universal Display Hierarchy and specify when the query is executed to only expand up to level 1 (in other words, country), the system only reads the data on the country level (sales per country and not sales per city) when the query is executed.

With universal display hierarchy up to level 1
Country	Sales
A	200
B	200
C	50
Total	450

However, if you choose the option Universal Display Hierarchy and specify when the query is executed to only expand up to level 2 (in other words, federal state), the system only reads the data on the federal state level, when the query is executed, and displays the data in a hierarchy.

With universal display hierarchy up to level 2
Country	Sales
A
AA	200
B
BA	50
BB	150
C
CA	50
Total	450

If you insert a different characteristic (at the first position above the characteristic Country, for example), such as the characteristic Payment Method, and you have activated the option Universal Display Hierarchy up to level 2, the system displays the data by payment method and then underneath by country.

Changed query definition with universal display hierarchy up to level 2
Payment Method	Sales
BZ01
B	150
C	50
BZ02
A	200
B	50
Total	450

If you want to view the data by country and by federal state on the executed query, expand the relevant nodes of the universal display hierarchy. The system reads the required data again.