Visual BI Extensions - Hierarchical Navigation for Charts

[IngoH]

In my previous blog post I outlined the hierarchical filter component and the detailed capabilities that can offer your users a true hierarchical filtering experience, including the option to filter on the lowest level on an unbalanced hierarchy with a simple click.

This time I would like to share a true hierarchical experience for charts. You most likely noticed that the standard charts (including the new InfoCharts in DS 1.6) right now do not offer any drill down functionality nor are they offering any options to visually outline a hierarchy that is used in a chart. The charts are able to show the hierarchy, but the user does not receive any visual indication on a hierarchy level or of the item is a hierarchy node or leaf.

We added several hierarchy specific functionality into our charts as part of the Visual BI Extensions for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio - especially for those topics mentioned above.

So lets assume we have a data source similar to the data source shown below with a handful of measures and an activated hierarchy in the rows.

When we assign the data source to the chart, we will notice that the root level nodes from the hierarchy are not shown by default. This is a property the user can decide to activate or to disable and by default it is disabled.

Opening up the Additional Properties we can now see all the detailed optioned for the chart.

• We can activate the hierarchical drill down, allowing the user to drill from the hierarchy nodes to the leafs. There is no limit on number of hierarchy levels.
• We can decide to include the Root Level nodes from the hierarchy - depending on our hierarchy setup.
• We can decide if we would like to include the parent node on the actual drill down page.
• We can decide to show all measures or only the measure that was used for the actual drill.
• We can activate the hierarchical label - will be shown later on in this blog.
• We can also set a maximum number of hierarchical levels in case we want to limit the drill down options.

.. and we can configure on which "event' we want to perform which type of action. We have a Select, a true drill down, and the option to do an inplace expand / collapse.

The easiest way to explain the behavior is to simply show a short video that shows the Expand / Collapse as well as the actual drill down in the chart.

100 Things you can do with Visual BI Extensions and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio