Alternate hierarchies enable managerial reporting by entity, business unit, product line, or other internal dimensions without disrupting the primary legal consolidation structure required for external reporting. For instance, a managerial hierarchy can prioritize business segments, such as Consumer, Partners, and Corporate, subdivided by geography, delivering clear performance visibility across units and regions. Common use cases for alternate hierarchies can be multi-GAAP reporting or reporting for statutory or management reporting formats. An alternate hierarchy is a second or additional parent-child tree on the same dimension. It reuses the same leaf members as the default hierarchy but arranges them under different parents. 

Add an alternate hierarchy

In the Hierarchy Manager, there are two ways to add members to the alternate hierarchies:

  • Use the Add Child and Add Sibling context-menu options in the default hierarchy pane to add members one by one.
  • Copy and paste or drag and drop from the main default hierarchy to the alternate hierarchy.

A combination of both methods is the recommended approach. First, to create parent members, you can use Add Child and Add Sibling. Then, add the children to the alternate hierarchy, such as Managerial Reporting. 

  1. Enter a number for the Max Depth of the alternate hierarchy, then select OK. The new, empty hierarchy will now appear in the list.

Note: The system limit for Max Depth is 16 levels. If a file import exceeds the maximum depth, a message appears and the new items won't be added. 

  1. To begin adding members, select the name of the alternate hierarchy you ‌created, right-click, and select Add Child. 

In the righthand pane, type a Name and Caption for the member. You can also add Tags, Translations, and Properties as needed before selecting Add.

  1. To add existing members from the main hierarchy, select a member from the right pane of existing members, right-click, and choose Copy.

Note:  For existing members, you cannot change the caption or properties, only the tags.

  1. Return to your alternate hierarchy, select the member you want to paste under, right-click, and choose a Paste option, such as Paste Child. Review Manage members for more information on the options. 
  2. Once you have created, added, and arranged all the members, select Save from the toolbar. 
  3. Select Process from the toolbar. 

Note: Saving the structure only stores your changes temporarily. You must separately select Process to propagate those changes throughout the application and make them active system-wide.

The new hierarchy now appears in the Hierarchy dropdown and can be used within your Financial Consolidation environment. 

Warning: You can't use shared members in alternate hierarchies.

Delete a member of an alternate hierarchy

In the Hierarchy Manager, you can delete members of an alternate hierarchy. To delete members:

  1. Go to the Models module, select the Dimensions tab, and double-click a dimension, such as Entity.
  2. Select the Hierarchy dropdown and choose an existing alternate hierarchy. 
  3. Select a member of the alternate hierarchy, right-click, and choose Delete. 
  4. Once you have deleted all the members, select Save from the toolbar. 
  5. Select Process from the toolbar. 

Delete an alternate hierarchy

  1. Go to the Models module, select the Dimensions tab, and double-click a dimension, such as Entity.
  2. Select the Hierarchy dropdown and choose an existing alternate hierarchy. 
  3. Double-click the Member Name column of the alternate hierarchy. 
  4. In the right pane, select Delete. 
  5. Select Save from the toolbar. 
  6. Select Process from the toolbar.