Working with Hierarchies in a Report

About Hierarchies

Creating hierarchies enables you to add drill-down functionality to your reports. A hierarchy is an arrangement of category columns that is based on parent-child relationships. The levels of a hierarchy are arranged with more general information at the top and more specific information at the bottom. For example, you might create a hierarchy of datetime columns with Year as the top level, Month as the next level, and Day as the bottom level.

You can also have a geographic hierarchy. For example, you might have a hierarchy with Region as the top level, State as the next level, and City as the bottom level.

You can have a maximum of two hierarchies for a report object.

Keep the following considerations in mind:

List tables, controls, and gauges do not support hierarchies.
Data item auto-assignment does not support hierarchies.
Crosstabs can have either a hierarchy or categories on each row or column, but not both.
Time series plot report objects allow only datetime data items in a hierarchy.
Geo bubble maps, geo coordinate maps, and geo region maps allow only geographic data items in a hierarchy.

You can also have a date hierarchy.

Create a New Hierarchy for a Report

To create a new hierarchy:

On the Data tab, click , and then select New Hierarchy. The New Hierarchy window is displayed.
Enter a Name.
Select at least two categories, and drag them to the Hierarchy list.
(Optional) Use the up and down arrows to arrange the data items in the Hierarchy list.
Click OK to save the new hierarchy. The icon identifies the new hierarchy in the list of data items on the Data tab.

Tip

You can create a date hierarchy by right-clicking a date or datetime data item on the Data tab, and selecting Create Date Hierarchy. If you use a date data item, it must have a format that specifies the year or the Create Date Hierarchy option is not available.

Crosstab report objects enable you to create hierarchies from the categories on a crosstab axis. To create a hierarchy, right-click a category heading, and then select Create Hierarchy. The categories are replaced with a new hierarchy. The name of the new hierarchy is generated from the name of the outermost category with the suffix Hierarchy.

Edit a Hierarchy for a Report

To edit a hierarchy:

Right-click the hierarchy name on the Data tab, and select Edit Hierarchy. The Edit Hierarchy window is displayed.
(Optional) Edit the Name.
Add and remove categories. There must be at least two categories.

Note: If a geographic hierarchy is used in a geo bubble map, geo coordinate map, or geo region map, only geographic data items are displayed when you edit the hierarchy.
Click OK to save the updated hierarchy.

If the hierarchy that you edit is already used in a report object and is drilled or expanded, it returns to the top level after it is edited.

Delete a Hierarchy for a Report

To delete a hierarchy:

Right-click the hierarchy name on the Data tab, and select Delete Hierarchy.
Click Delete in the confirmation message that is displayed. The hierarchy is removed from the list of data items, as well as from any report objects, filters, or ranks that were using it.