This article provides a comprehensive guide to managing hierarchies in Catalyst. Hierarchies are a powerful tool for organizing and analyzing your data, allowing you to drill down from high-level summaries to granular details.
This article contains the following topics:
- What are hierarchies
- Examples
- Why use hierarchies
- Hierarchy types
- Creating a new hierarchy
- Manage existing hierarchies
- Updating and uploading hierarchies
- Alternative to hierarchies
Introduction
What are Hierarchies?
In Catalyst, hierarchies categorize your data dimensions, enhancing your analytical capabilities. They establish a parent-child relationship between data points, offering a structured way to understand your information. Imagine a hierarchy as a family tree, where each level represents a more specific category within a broader group.
Examples of Hierarchies
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Geography: Continent > Country > State/Province > City/Town > Address
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Company: Company A > Department X > Team Y > Employee Z
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Product: Category > Subcategory > Product Line > Product
Call-Out: Notice that each level within the Hierarchy has a direct relationship to the other levels. This is very important when creating your structures. It wouldn't make sense to include levels that don't have a 1:1 relationship with the preceding or subsequent levels. In other words, this isn't just a long list of account attributes from your ERP. For example, you wouldn't want to put Customer or Product levels under Geography because it wouldn't follow the relational logic.
Benefits of Hierarchies
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Improved Data Analysis: Hierarchies enable you to analyze data from various perspectives, offering a deeper understanding of trends and patterns.
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Simplified Reporting: By organizing data hierarchically, reports become easier to read and interpret.
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Enhanced Drill-Down Capabilities: You can seamlessly navigate through different levels of detail within your data.
Types of Hierarchies in Catalyst
Catalyst comes with pre-built hierarchies for common data structures. These include:
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Account: Represents financial hierarchies like Income Statement and Balance Sheet.
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Company: Organizes individual entities within your organization.
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Customer: Structures customer data with levels like Master Customer, Parent Customer, and Sales Reps.
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Item: Shows data at the SKU level, allowing product categorization.
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Profitability Account: Includes data like Quantity, Gross Sales, and Cost of Goods Sold for calculated accounts and measures.
Creating a New Hierarchy
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Go to the Administration tab and select Hierarchies.
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Click Add Hierarchy.
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Choose the most relevant Hierarchy Type based on your data analysis needs (e.g., Customer, Company).
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Assign a descriptive Hierarchy Name.
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(Optional) Add a Description for further context.
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Select Enable Security to control user access for specific Cubes.
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Choose Available in Cube to include the hierarchy in Excel Cube files for analysis.
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Use Company Attribute for hierarchies with a single level (e.g., Color).
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Select Available in Reports Filters to allow adding the hierarchy to existing reports.
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Choose Enable Report Category to create a new report set based on this hierarchy.
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Define Element Display Options for specific hierarchies (e.g., Profitability Account).
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Click Save.
Managing Existing Hierarchies
The Hierarchy management tool (under Administration > Site Management) allows you to edit and manage existing hierarchies. Here's what you can do:
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Details: Modify hierarchy name, default group, security settings, and cube/reporting options.
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Levels: Rename, add, or remove levels within the hierarchy (maximum 9 levels).
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Tree View: Create, edit, or move elements (accounts, items, companies) within the hierarchy.
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Export/Upload: This section is crucial for our update!
- Details: Allows changes to the hierarchy name, the default group for new elements, security, and various cube and reporting options. Includes all options from the creation process.
- Levels: Allows for the renaming and adding/removing levels from a hierarchy. Max is 9.
- Tree View: Allows elements (item, account, company, etc.) or a group of elements to be created, modified, and/or moved within the hierarchy.
- Export/Upload: Allows for the export of a hierarchy to Excel for changes to a large number of elements or groups. Functions as a great way to map unassigned nodes (accounts, items, companies, etc.).
- Calculated Accounts: Allows for the definition of Standard Calculated Accounts (Gross Margin, EBITDA, Net Income, etc.) as well as the creation of User Defined Calculated Accounts (e.g. Net Sales, Product Margin, etc.). When a new Account is added, a Leaf will be added to all Account Hierarchies for each Company in the system. These leaves are not visible in Planning, but are available in both the Cubes and Reports.
- Configuration: Allows the for the definition of hierarchy-specific configuration and is necessary for several sections of the software to function properly.
- Sign-Flip: Allows the user to upload data in the format in which it is generated from the ERP system without manual manipulation and still present an output that is consistent with the internal financial statements. For example, standard general ledger detail shows revenue as a credit and expenses as debits, however, the most common P&L presentation is to show both as positive numbers. Thus, to accommodate that presentation, the user needs to flip one of the signs. Sign-flip within the Catalyst software allows the user to do this without having to manually adjust the data inputs. Allows the user to specify specific Account Groupings or Accounts for which the values displayed in the cubes and reports should have the opposite sign shown (e.g. Revenue appears in the data as a negative (credit) amount, but you want it to appear in the reports as a positive amount.). Sign-flip only applies to Actuals Scenarios, it will have no effect on Forecast or Budget Scenarios.
- Calculated Measures: Allows the user to view data on a percentage basis or per numeric basis, such as a % of Sales.
- Business Owners: To give users access to manage this hierarchy they must be added as a Business Owner. You can also add Groups instead of individual users. This section allows for specific hierarchy level security to enable easier management and control of hierarchy maintenance. Business Owners can choose to automatically receive email notifications when unassigned accounts are created, so that they can be mapped to a given hierarchy.
- Currency: Allows the user to indicate the currency that the data is stored in, and the exchange rate type used to convert to other currencies. Both can be assigned by Company and by Node or Leaf. Please note that certain node and leaves will only become clickable once background processing has completed.
Uploading New Data with Export/Upload
The Export/Upload tab allows you to upload new data and manage unassigned nodes (accounts, items, companies) efficiently. Here's the process:
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Click Export. This creates a downloadable Excel file containing your current hierarchy structure.
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In the Excel file, map unassigned elements to their appropriate positions within the hierarchy. You can add new elements, modify existing ones, and define parent-child relationships. To learn more about how to map unassigned accounts navigate here: Mapping Unassigned Accounts in Catalyst
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Save your changes in the Excel file.
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Click Upload and select the modified Excel file. This uploads your changes and updates the hierarchy in Catalyst.
Benefits of Using Export/Upload
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Efficient Mass Updates: Easily manage large numbers of unassigned elements.
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Improved Accuracy: Reduce errors by mapping elements directly within the familiar Excel interface.
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Streamlined Hierarchy Management: Save time and effort compared to manual updates within Catalyst.
When not to use a hierarchy
For 1:many relationships, hierarchies aren't enough. For these types of relationships, rather than using hierarchies we'll want to use transaction attributes.
- Each transaction that arrives in Catalyst is unique. It has a unique transaction type underneath it, it has dimensions, and it has an amount.
- Think of dimensions as column headers in a table, such as ID, posted date, location, account, department, customer, company, etc.
- When there are 1:1 relationships between a dimension and a category or a definition, hierarchies work great. But sometimes, we don't have simple 1:1 relationships in data. We may actually have 1:many relationships.
Hierarchies are a valuable tool for organizing and analyzing data in Catalyst. By understanding how to create, manage, and upload data using the Export/Upload function, you can leverage the full potential of hierarchies to gain deeper insights from your information.
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