Define Hierarchies
What this covers
The Hierarchies panel defines ordered drill paths such as Year > Quarter > Month, Country > Region > Store, or Segment > Category > Product. Hierarchies give Tessallite enough structure to generate time variants, guide drill-through, and expose business navigation paths to downstream consumers.
This is different from the Dimensions panel. Dimensions expose individual attributes; hierarchies declare how attributes roll up.
Hierarchy types
| Type | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Explicit | You already know each level and want to add them manually. |
| Date embedded | A date column can generate levels such as year, quarter, month, week, or day. |
| Segment | A code or text field contains multiple levels that can be split by delimiter or position. |
Time hierarchy fields
For time hierarchies, set the dimension kind to time and choose the calendar type when period calculations matter. Fiscal and ISO calendars change the meaning of year, week, quarter, and period-to-date variants.
Time units on levels are what let measures support variants such as YTD, prior year, moving windows, and period-to-date calculations.
Health checks
The panel checks whether hierarchy levels still point to valid attributes, whether required time metadata is present, and whether generated levels can be interpreted by the query compiler. Resolve hierarchy warnings before relying on time variants or drill paths.