5
Hierarchies

Chapter summary

This chapter describes how you can create and use hierarchies in the Financial Analyzer environment.

Who should read this chapter

You need to know the information in this chapter if you are:

• An administrator who creates hierarchies for personal use and for distribution to users in the shared database that you administer

• A Budget workstation user who creates hierarchies for personal use and uses hierarchies that have been distributed to you

• An Analyst workstation user who, although unable to create or maintain them, wishes to gain a basic understanding hierarchies

List of topics

This chapter includes the following topics:

• About Hierarchies

• Hierarchy Structures

• Creating and Modifying Hierarchies

About Hierarchies

Definition: Hierarchies

Hierarchies are tree-like organizational structures that you can use to relate the values of dimensions in your database. Hierarchies enable the data associated with dimension values to be aggregated at various levels along the structure. Dimensions that are associated with hierarchies in this way are called embedded total dimensions because the levels of aggregation are embedded in the dimension's values. Typically, these dimensions include Time, Product, and Organization, but you can define hierarchies for any dimension in your system.

For more information about dimensions and dimension values, refer to Chapter 3.

Who can work with hierarchies?

Administrators

As an administrator, it is your responsibility to maintain the hierarchies that your users access in the shared database that you administer. When you create or modify a hierarchy and want other users to be able to access it, you must distribute the hierarchy to the shared database and to other users.

Budget workstation users

As a Budget workstation user, you can create and modify hierarchies for your own personal use. You can modify hierarchies that your administrator has created for you, but you cannot save the modifications unless you assign a new name to the modified hierarchy, retaining the original.

Hierarchy Structures

Typical hierarchy structure

A typical hierarchy is organized in a tree-like structure with one value at the top of the tree and multiple values branching out from the top.

The following illustration shows a typical hierarchy.

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Parent and child values

The relationships between the various values are referred to as though they were part of a family tree. Each dimension value in a hierarchy (except the top-most value) has a parent value, which is the value directly above it in the structure. The dimension values directly below a parent are called its children.

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Sibling values

Each parent value can have any number of children. Dimension values that have the same parent are called siblings.

The following illustration shows siblings in a hierarchy.

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Descendant and ancestor values

Each child value can also have children of its own, and so on. Multiple levels of dimension values that roll up to a common value are called descendants of that value, and the value itself is known as the ancestor of the descendent values.

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Leaf values

In a hierarchy, any dimension value that has no children is called a leaf dimension value.

Leaf dimension values are the only dimension values for which you can input data for a hierarchy. The data for each non-leaf dimension value is consolidated from its children.

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Example: Hierarchy structure

This example illustrates a sample hierarchy for the Organization dimension for a fictitious company, US Global Computers. In this diagram:

• All of the divisions (East, Central, West) at the bottom of the hierarchy are leaf organizations, as are the values Support and Training.

• Data for the Support, Consulting and Training divisions will roll up into Sales data, and Resource, Manufacturing, Sales, and Finance data will roll up into corporate data for US Global Computers.

The following diagram illustrates a sample hierarchy that is based on the Organization dimension.

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Using dimension values in multiple hierarchies

Financial Analyzer supports multiple hierarchies. This means that you can specify any number of hierarchies for rolling up data. For example, you might want to define separate hierarchies for examining management and functional data.

In most hierarchies, any dimension value that is not the top-most can have only one parent. However, if that dimension value belongs to more than one hierarchy, it can have a different parent in each hierarchy.

Example: Using dimension values in multiple hierarchies

In this example, there are two hierarchies, each representing a different type of computer system.

• The Sentinel Standard hierarchy contains the dimension values Monitor and System Software

• The Sentinel Multimedia hierarchy contains the dimension value Fax/Modem, as well as Monitor and System Software

  
  
  Text description of the illustration U_05c007.gif

  In the Selector, these would appear as separate product hierarchies that you can choose from to use in a report or worksheet:

  
  
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Multiple top-level parents in the same hierarchy

You can create a hierarchy that has more than one top-level parent. Specifying a hierarchy with more than one top-level value can be useful when working with time-related dimensions.

Example: Multiple top-level parents in the same hierarchy

In this example, 1999 and 2000 are top level parents in the Application Time hierarchy.

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In the Selector, 1999 and 2000 appear as top level parents in the Application Time hierarchy. Notice that these values are siblings, and there are no higher level values in the hierarchy.

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Creating and Modifying Hierarchies

Creating hierarchies

You choose Hierarchy from the Maintain menu to create a new hierarchy. This opens the Maintain Hierarchy dialog box. From this starting point you can perform the following functions:

• Enter a name for the hierarchy. The name is the external identifier for the hierarchy.

• Enter the base dimension for the hierarchy. The object name is the internal identifier for the hierarchy.

• Choose the dimension values that comprise the hierarchy.

• Specify the position of each dimension value within the hierarchy.

Example: Hierarchy information

The following example shows the Maintain Hierarchy dialog box with information for a Product hierarchy.

Text description of the illustration newhier.gif

Modifying hierarchies

You choose Hierarchy from the Maintain menu to modify hierarchies. This opens the Maintain Hierarchy dialog box, from which you can perform the following maintenance functions:

• You can edit a hierarchy by adding dimension values or removing dimension values.

• You can give a hierarchy a new name.

• You can move a hierarchy to a new position in the list of hierarchies maintained by the system.

• You can delete a hierarchy from your personal database. As an administrator, you can also delete a hierarchy from the shared database by deleting it from your personal database, and then distributing this change to the shared database.

Related information

For more information about working with hierarchies, refer to the following topics in the Financial Analyzer Help system:

"Creating Hierarchies."

"Deleting Hierarchies"

"Editing Hierarchies"

"Moving Hierarchies"

"Renaming Hierarchies"