Analyzing Hierarchy Reports

Unbalanced hierarchies are hierarchies with branches that descend to inconsistent levels. For example, in an Employee hierarchy, different parts of the organizational structure will have more management levels than others.

Many organizations have aspects of their business that are organized in unbalanced hierarchies. Besides the Employee hierarchy, other typical examples include a chart of accounts, complex product portfolios, and multinational geographic groupings.

Hierarchy Reports are a class of reports in which the data is naturally organized and presented in a hierarchical structure. Hierarchy Reporting features treat hierarchies as a first-class citizen, and make interacting with entire hierarchies intuitive and efficient. Both balanced and unbalanced hierarchies may be represented in a hierarchy report, although unbalanced hierarchies benefit the most from Hierarchy Reporting features.

Hierarchical Attributes

To facilitate the building of hierarchy reports, there is a new type of attribute: the hierarchical attribute. The hierarchical attribute represents an entire hierarchy and all its levels. For example, you may have a Time hierarchical attribute that represents the Time hierarchy, including its levels Year, Quarter, Month, and Day. In contrast, a normal attribute usually represents a single level of a hierarchy (for example, Year). The hierarchical attribute appears on a grid, filtered, and sorted, much like a normal attribute.

Navigating Hierarchy Reports

Navigate through the hierarchy by expanding and collapsing the hierarchical attributes using the plus (+) and minus (-) icons. You can also tap the cell directly above the top level of the hierarchy and choose Expand/Collapse >Expand All or Collapse All.

Sorting Hierarchy Reports

When a report with a hierarchical attribute is sorted, the structure of the hierarchy remains intact, so every element retains its parent in the hierarchy tree. Each level of the hierarchy is sorted separately from the other levels.

To sort on a hierarchy or a metric, tap the cell directly above the top level of the hierarchy and choose Sort Ascending or Sort Descending.

Filtering Hierarchy Reports

To filter a Hierarchy report, tap the Filter icon to open the Filter panel. Then, tap the filter you want to use. The Filter panel displays the elements of the hierarchy in a tree. Expand or collapse the filters using the plus (+) and minus icons. You can also expand or collapse all of the filters by tapping Expand/Collapse >Expand All or Collapse All.