Creating a Hierarchy Alias

Birst Administrators who have the required ACL permissions can define a Hierarchy Alias and create logical representations of a hierarchy without replicating data within Birst.

You must be a member of a group that has the AdvancedAdmin permission in order to access the Advanced button on the Hierarchies page of the Define Sources tab. See Group ACLs.

Example Scenario

A purchaser is issued a reward from one store location and redeems the reward at another store location.

A store source feeds into the Store dimension, and has the level key named Store_ID.

Another source called Redemption has a column named Store_ID (where the reward was issued) and another column named Redeem_Store_ID (where the reward was redeemed/used).

The source Redemption has a fact named Award_Amount.

In the past, to support this scenario without using the Hierarchy Alias feature, an Administrator needed to create a new scripted source where the Redeem_Store_ID column could live. The scripted source is essentially a copy of the Store dimension. The new scripted source and the original Store dimension source can now connect to the fact table, Award_Amount. This approach is cumbersome for Administrators and requires redundant metadata.

Now, administrators can create a Hierachy Alias based on the Store_ID hierarchy level called Redeemed. This creates a logical representation of the Store dimension from the perspective of stores where the redemption took place.

To create a Hierarchy Alias

Go to Admin - Define Sources - Hierarchies.

Select a Hierarchy level from the Hierarchies tree. The Advanced button on the bottom right of the page becomes active.

Click Advanced. The Advanced Properties dialog opens.

Click Create a New Alias. The Alias Properties dialog opens.

Type a name for the alias and select the alias type.

Click the value under Alias Column Name to open a list with all the available columns for that specific source. Select the column to use.

Click OK in the Alias Properties dialog box. The new alias you created will be listed in the Hierarchy Alias table in the Advanced Properties dialog box. Click OK again.

Click Save at the top of the Hierarchies page.

Once this space is processed, the subject area in Designer will reflect the newly created hierarchy alias. A new folder in the subject area will be created with the alias named using the prefix of the folder name. The folder will contain a copy of all attributes targeted to the original hierarchy and their names will be prefixed with the alias name.