Defaulting Hierarchies

[chris_robertson]

We are using a hierarchy on 0cust_sales. Not all our customers are assigned to a hierarchy. This causes problems in the report when they do sorts. We were told that we could not do anything about this in the query, but that we could in the load of the hierarchy into BW by defaulting those customers that are unassigned to the root of the hierarchy.

Sounds good. But now they are looking to me to do this and I can't find where logic like this would be placed. Can any one point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Chris,

I’m not agree with your statement “it filters out those [nodes] that don't have a hierarchy”.

A little clarification. The default structure of a hierarchy (with unchecked 'Suppress Unassign Node' option) is the following:

ROOT

--LEVEL

-

---

LEAF

….

---UNASSIGNED

A hierarchy is built for a characteristic, not for separate char values. In your case it is built for 0cust_sales. You may or may not include some particular 0cust_sales values into hierarchy. If in the TRANSACTION DATA the system encounters value included into the hierarchy structure, this value will be shown in reporting as appropriate leaf/node in the hierarchy. If encountered value was not set in the hierarchy structure, it’ll go to unassigned node.

Checking 'Suppress Unassign Node' option will wipe out this node in the report. So, 0cust_sales values in transaction data that are not set in the hierarchy structure will be omitted.

Here we need to return to your requirements. What exactly do you want to get, ‘cause it’s not very clear?

Best regards,

Eugene

PS. Loading a hierarchy through PSA, I guess, has little to do with your question. That’s why I didn’t go into details about it.

[chris_robertson]

Eugene,

Thanks for time in responding to this post. It is appreciated. I don't claim to understand this stuff well, so please be patient.

You say omitted and I say filtered but it reads the same to me. We don't want those not assigned to a hierarchy value to be omitted from the report. What I'm specifically trying to determine from this post is if we can when loading the hierarchy assign those that are unassigned to the root of the hierarchy. That is why my ears pick up on loading it through the PSA, because it sound like then I could use transfer rules.

Here's the bigger picture. We have some reports that use the hierarchy. It displays much like you showed in your post and that is fine:

ROOT

--LEVEL

-

---

LEAF

….

---UNASSIGNED

But then the user of the report wants to see which customer had let's say the most sales. So they sort descending on Gross Sales. The report then sorts descending on gross sales within the root of the hierarchy and within the unassigned.

ROOT

--999

--888

--777

UNASSIGNED

--987

At this point we prefer it to sort all customers together regardless of hierarchy:

--999

--987

--888

--777

We've tried to find a solution to this several ways including an earlier post on SDN forums.

Recently we were told that there is nothing we could do about this in the query and it was recommended we address this during the load of the hierarchy by assigning the unassigned to the root of the hierarchy. Hence our interest. We’re open to any other suggestions. But so far this is the only one we got, so we are trying to pursue it.

Thanks,

Chris

[Former Member]

Hi Chris,

Ok, now it's more clear.

Just an idea: create a variable with replacement path on your customer IO. Set 'Replace variable with' = Query result. As a query name choose the query that you already have (with hierarchy).

Create another query, put into rows customer IO, do not activate hierarchy for it, just restrict by the var you created.

So, first query will give you a subset which you can use in the second query.

Try it and let us know if it works.

Best regards,

Eugene

[chris_robertson]

Eugene,

Thanks for your reply. It was very helpful. I don't think the 'Suppress Unassign Node' option that you mentioned will meet are exact needs because it filters out those that don't have a hierarchy. But in the link you provided, I found the following: 'When loading hierarchies, the hierarchy attributes are transferred from the old active version of the hierarchy. When loading via the PSA, they can be overridden by transfer rules.' I'm not loading the hierarchy through the PSA table so maybe that's why I wasn't able to see a transfer rule where I could over ride them.

[chris_robertson]

Yuck, but 0cust_sales does not seem to have a hierarchy that support a PSA load?

[Former Member]

Hi Chris,

I quess it was a talk about unchecking flag 'Supress unassigned noder' (Hierarchy maintenance, menu option Goto/Hierarchy attributes (or the button):

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_sem350bw/helpdata/en/7d/ae45e9e9d4ba478f663bd12ee0fae0/content.htm

Best regards,

Eugene