Hierarchy settings

Adjust hierarchy display options to control structure, icons, and hierarchical behavior.

In the Lumel EPM toolbar, navigate to Settings > Appearance to open the settings side panel.

Click the Hierarchy tab in this panel to view the hierarchy settings.

Showcasing hierarchy settings option

Let's explore the options to customize hierarchies in your reports.

1. Header and Column

1.1. Category highlight

This drop-down lets you show or hide the category highlight. This option is set to Off by default. When this option is enabled, a color picker is displayed. You can select a color to highlight the category hierarchy.

Highlighting category

1.2. Responsive columns

If this option is enabled, when the report canvas is resized to a small size, only columns that fit into the canvas will be displayed and others will be hidden.

1.3. Combine column headers

Enabling this option will combine the column headers and measure labels to display compact headers. As you can see from the below image, when this option is turned off, the column headers and measure labels are displayed separately.

When combine column headers is disabled

When this option is enabled, the column headers and measure labels are combined and displayed compactly.

When combine column headers is enabled

Column header separator

When the Combine Column Headers option is enabled, this option lets you specify the type of separator that will get inserted between the column header and the measure label.

Combine column headers is enabled with the separator -

If the Combine column headers option is enabled, you won't be able to reorder the columns.

1.4. Ragged hierarchy

In the case of ragged/unbalanced hierarchies where the number of levels is uneven, you can hide the blank category rows.

This option can be enabled from Settings > Ragged Hierarchy or from Settings > Appearance > Hierarchy > Ragged Hierarchy.

Ragged hierarchy option disabled

Notice how the blank categories have been hidden after enabling the Ragged Hierarchy option.

Enabled Ragged hierarchy with sub-options

On enabling ragged hierarchy, additional options are displayed.

1.4.1. Hide blanks

Using this option, you can choose to hide the rows if the category is blank, the visible values are blank, the values are blank, or both the value and category are blank.

Hide Blanks Options

Visible values suppress all the blank Categories and Values that are currently visible on the report.

1.4.2. Suppress zeros

If you enable this option, then the rows containing zeros will be suppressed.

Suppress Zeroes are Disabled.

Rows containing Zeroes are suppressed when Suppress Zeroes Enabled.

1.4.3. Suppress null data input measures

Data input measures with no assigned values offer no meaningful contribution to reports. You can opt to suppress them by enabling the Suppress Null DI (Number) Measures option in Display Settings.

The budget column is visible when the 'Suppress null data input' option is disabled.

In this sample report, budget has not been allocated. We can hide this column by enabling the suppress null option for data input measures.

Null data input measure- 'Budget' has been suppressed

1.4.4. Suppress null columns

Formulated Columns containing null values will be suppressed if this option is enabled.

2025 Budget is a formulated column with null values.

The 2025 Budget Column is visible.

Suppress Null EPM Measure is enabled

1.4.5. Hide blank label columns

Columns with blank labels will be suppressed if this option is enabled.

Blank categories in the column dimension

Blank Categories in the Column Dimension are suppressed

1.5. Hide blank dimensions in column hierarchy

When you have hierarchical column dimensions, there may be cases where the entire dimension category is blank as shown in the report below.

Blank Dimension in Column hierarchy

Since these categories do not add value to the report, you can suppress them by enabling the Hide blank dimensions in column hierarchy option.

Blank column dimension 'State' is suppressed

1.6. Row hierarchy icon

You can select custom icon styles to represent the row hierarchy i.e. choose the expand/collapse icons for hierarchical categories. If None is selected, an icon will not be displayed.

Setting desired row hierarchy icon

1.7. Column hierarchy icon

You can select custom icon styles to represent the column hierarchy as well.

Setting desired column hierarchy icon

2. Expand to level

If your dataset contains hierarchies with multiple levels, you can choose to expand the hierarchy to a specific level at the initial load. This setting will be retained even after applying a filter/slicer.

Expanding up to 1 level of hierarchy

Expand column to last level

If your columns have multiple hierarchy levels, enabling this option allows you to expand the hierarchy to the last level. This option is disabled by default.

Enabling expand column to last level toggle

3. Mixed layout

You can display a chosen field as a separate column similar to the stepped layout. By default, it is set to None. In the below image, the variant field has been selected, and it gets displayed as a separate column in the visual.

Mixed Layout is set.

This option is available only in the Hierarchy layout when there are 3 or more levels in the row dimensions.

4. Child

4.1. Indent from parent

This option lets you set the amount of indentation that has to be applied to the last level of child row from the parent row.

The minimum and maximum indentation values are 1 and 25 respectively.

In the image below, every child row has been indented from its parent row by the specified amount.

Showcasing indent from parent option

4.2. Single child

Use this option to control which nodes are displayed when a parent hierarchy has only one child. In this example, we have a multi-level account hierarchy with 4 single-child rows.

The 'Artisan Ale', 'Dark Roast', 'Cosmic Craft Brews', 'Galaxy Porter' has only one child row with 'Dark Roast', 'Galaxy Porter' having the leaf node. Let's see how this report is displayed for each of the options.

• All - Displays all rows, including parent rows, single child rows, and blank rows.

Let's consider the example of the 'Beer' category with brands 'Artisan Ale' and 'Cosmic Craft Brews' to understand the various Single child options better.

All the Single child rows of 2 brands are listed.

• Parent only - Displays only the parent nodes of the single child.

Parent nodes of the single child rows '12-Pack' are displayed

• Parent (Multi-level) - Displays only the highest-level parent row with single child of the multi-level hierarchy.

In the image below, the highest-level parent row with a single child is displayed.

Highest-level parent row with a single child is displayed.

• Single child level as parent - Displays the single child as the parent level.

Here, the '12-Pack' is the child, which is shown as the parent level.

Single child level as parent is shown.

• Single child as parent - Displays only the single child at the lowest level.

Displaying single child as parent

4.3. Remove single children

In the Outline layout, enabling this option hides leaf nodes when a parent has only a single child with no siblings.

Parents with single children are present

Single children are hidden after enabling remove single children

4.4. Hide repeating parent rows

When enabled, this option hides repeating consecutive parent rows in the hierarchy for improved clarity.

The images below compare the hierarchy view when the Hide Repeating Parent Rows toggle is disabled and enabled.

Hierarchy view with hide repeating parent rows disabled

Hierarchy view with hide repeating parent rows enabled

5. Row subtotals

With Lumel EPM, while using outline or stepped layouts, you can customize the title for the subtotal rows in two available options:

• By adding the parent row dimension category as a suffix or prefix

• Customizing the 'Total' text

In the example, the row dimension category is added as the prefix and ' - Total Revenue' is added as the text for each subtotal row - E.g., 'Beer - Total Revenue' or 'Cosmic Craft Brews - Total Revenue'.

Prefix and a custom title text ' - Total Revenue' is added

6. Row totals

You can customize the row totals by adding child count, padding, editing titles, and more. The available options are explained below.

6.1. Show child count

Enabling this option will display the count of child rows next to the name of the parent row in brackets.

Showing child count

6.2. Show descendants count

You can also display the total number of children including the leaf nodes under a parent category by enabling Show Descendants Count toggle.

Prerequisite: the Show Child Count option should be enabled.

Showing descendants count

6.3. Top padding

Using this option, you can configure the spacing/padding between row hierarchies.

Showcasing top padding

6.4. Expand/collapse

This option lets you specify when the expand/collapse icons for the hierarchies have to be displayed.

• Always present - Expand/collapse icon will be always present

• Only on hover - The expand/collapse icons are displayed only when you hover over the rows

Setting expand/collapse icons to be present always

6.5. Hide hierarchy icon

With this option, you can specify the fields for which you want to hide the hierarchy icon. All the fields are selected by default, and unselecting any field will hide the hierarchy icon for that field.

In the image below, the 'Variant' field has been unselected; therefore, the hierarchy icon for that field has been hidden.

Hiding hierarchy icon

6.6. Grand total title

The options related to Grand total can be seen only if the Row/Column Grand Total value has not been set to Off under the Totals option.

You can set a custom title for the grand total in the textbox.

Setting custom title for grand total

6.7. Grand total height

The value that you specify here will override the default height of the grand total row.

The minimum and maximum values for grand total height are 5 and 45 respectively.

Setting grand total height

7. Column totals

With Lumel EPM, you can customize the title, style and expand/collapse icons for the column totals.

7.1. Grand total title

You can set a custom title for column grand total using this option.

Setting custom title for column grand total

7.2. Text style

You can make use this option to customize the style of the grand total column, such as applying bold or italic formatting.

Applying bold & italic style to column grand total column

7.3. Expand/collapse

Use this option to control when the expand/collapse icons for column hierarchies are displayed.

• Always present - Expand/collapse icons are always visible.

• Only on hover - Expand/collapse icons appear only when you hover over the canvas.

Setting expand/collapse icons to be always present for column hierarchies

In this section, we covered the hierarchy display settings. Navigate to the next section to learn more about advanced number formatting.