How Conditions Interact with Hierarchies

There are a few special features for using conditions in queries

• in which characteristics have active display hierarchies
• or, in which axes are displayed hierarchically

No Ranked Lists with Display Hierarchies (Rule 7)

There are two kinds of conditions: Conditions with threshold values (for example x>y) and those with ranked lists (for example Top N). Semantically speaking, there are also two kinds of key figures: Absolute key figures (such as sales, profit) and relative key figures (such as plan-actual variance in percent, profit-sales ratio).

The following table shows how conditions are used in combination with display hierarchies:

Using ranked lists in combination with display hierarchies is not supported for the following reasons:

With ranked lists, all rows of the displayed list are considered and their interrelationship decides whether the row is displayed. Additionally, ranked lists are always automatically displayed as sorted.

Automatic sorting could destroy the structure of a display hierarchy. Hierarchy nodes and values that have been arranged in a display hierarchy based on certain business modeling would be arranged in a different way, based on the sorting according to ranked list. The business context would thus be lost.

Using threshold value conditions with absolute key figures in combination with display hierarchies is usually not very useful for the following reason:

If you have an absolute key figure such as Revenue for a characteristic with an active display hierarchy such as Region in the query, and you apply a condition to it with threshold values such as Revenue >2000. In this case, the condition is not usually useful since the values on each hierarchy level are usually very different. The values on the hierarchy level Region are usually much higher than those on the hierarchy level Country. Similarly, the values on the hierarchy level Country are usually somewhat higher than those on the hierarchy level State.

Features of Displaying Display Hierarchies and Hierarchically Displayed Axes (Rule 10)

A hierarchy node is displayed, even if it does not fulfill the condition, if it has at least one subordinate node that fulfills the condition. This is necessary, because otherwise the subordinate node could not be classified. This ensures that the business context for the end user of the query remains after a condition has been applied.

Conditions on Characteristic Combinations with Hierarchies

Conditions on characteristic combinations are possible for display hierarchies as long as the condition is a threshold value condition. For more information, seeQuery with a Display Hierarchy and Conditions andQuery with Two Display Hierarchies and Conditions.

With hierarchically displayed axes, conditions are possible for characteristic combinations as long as the condition is a threshold value condition and as long as the hierarchical display is expanded up to the characteristic that the condition is to affect (see below). For more information, seeQuery with Hierarchically Displayed Axis and Conditions.

Queries with Hierarchically Displayed Axis and Conditions

If you define conditions for queries in which you display the axis hierarchically, make sure that you expand the hierarchical display up to the characteristic that the condition is to affect. You have to make the setting Expand to <Characteristic> in the context menu for the associated axis (rows or columns) in the Query Designer. You can also make this setting using the Web during runtime. In the context menu for the Web application, choose Data Provider Properties and make the appropriate setting under Formatting of Data (seeData Provider Properties).

Also note that it is not enough to manually expand the appropriate nodes during runtime. The drilldown level must be set using the Expand to <Characteristic> function so that the condition can be applied.

For more information, seeQuery with Hierarchically Displayed Axis and Conditions.