SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW)

The organization of the characteristic values of a characteristic into a tree structure.

Example: A hierarchy for cost centers that are combined in cost center groups.

In reporting, hierarchies for characteristics can be set in the following ways:

• As presentation hierarchies for a characteristic, if it is to be displayed as a hierarchy

• As a way of selecting particular characteristic values if a characteristic is to be restricted to a hierarchy or a hierarchy node

Hierarchies can be loaded into the BW system or created in the BW system for hierarchy basic characteristics. They can be used across InfoProviders.