Reference Group Settings

When the personalized filter question itself is used in aggregated tables, it will by default be masked such that it only shows the current report base. You can however also include “reference groups” – other units on the same or other levels in the hierarchy - for comparison.

If you need to change the “reference group” settings, double-click the personalized filter question in the table designer or right-click on it and select Properties to open the Properties page .

Figure 1 - The Reference Group properties

We will first examine the settings for self and parents when “Set Report Base” is set to “Direct Sales”.

Figure 2 - The Current report base set to "Direct Sales"

Self

Self is the hierarchy unit that is selected in “Set Report Base” - in the example “Direct Sales”. Check this box in the Reference Group to include the currently selected report base in the table (go to Reference Group Settings for more information).

Parents

Parent has three possible options:

• Parent – displays the unit immediately above the unit selected as the current report base. In the example below, “Sales”.
• Top parent – displays the uppermost unit above the current. In the example below, “The Company”.
• All parents – displays all the units directly above the current. In the example below, “Sales” and “The Company”.

View illustration.

Figure 3 - Direct Sales selected as report base

Siblings

A Sibling is a unit on the same level in the hierarchy as the unit selected as the current report base, and within the same branch (so they have the same parent).

The settings for siblings are:

• All siblings - displays all the units at the same level as the current, within the same branch. In the example here this would be “Partner Sales”.
• Max sibling - displays the maximum (best) result of the units at the same level within the same branch of the hierarchy.
• Min sibling - displays the minimum (worst) result of the units at the same level within the same branch of the hierarchy.

Figure 4 - The current report base is set to Direct Sales

Change the current report base to “Sales” .

Figure 5 - The current report base is changed to Sales

The personalized filter question (department) is crossed with a collapsed grid “Work objectives” where Average is selected. The following table .- will be the result when “self”, “all siblings”, “max sibling” and “min sibling” are selected as “reference group” settings for the personalized filter question “Department”:

Figure 6 - Example of a Sibling table

For each row, the maximum and minimum is selected among the siblings (all the units on the same level, within the same branch in the hierarchy).

Children

Children are units below the “current report base”. When selecting children, you must define how many levels below the current you wish to include. All children in each of these levels will then be included. For example, with “Sales” selected .as in the figure below, and with the “Number of child levels” set to 1, the result will be “Direct Sales” and “Partner Sales”.

Figure 7 - The "children" of Sales

If the “current report base” is changed to the top node, “The Company” .(see the figure below), and the “Number of child levels” remains set to 1, the result will be “Sales”, “Marketing”, “Professional Services”, and “Administration”. If the top node is left at "The Company", and you then set the "Number of child levels" to 2, then the result will be both the Sales, Marketing etc. level and their children (Direct Sales, Partner Sales etc.) - that is, in this case, the entire hierarchy.

Figure 8 - The current report base changed to "The Company"

The figure here shows the resulting table header with “The Company” selected as current report base and “Self” and 2 in “Number of child levels”:

Figure 9 - The resulting table when "child levels" is set to 2

You can select multiple levels, and you can also select levels that are a number of levels below the current level. To select for example The Company and the Direct Sales, Partner Sales etc. level, set "Number of child levels" to 0 and Levels to 2 (do not include direct children, but include the second level (grandchildren)). In the event the hierarchy contains many levels, you can select several levels - separate the desired levels with commas (,).

Levels

Use this field to specify how many parent levels up from the current level are to be shown for a hierarchy.

The Levels field may contain both absolute and relative indices. All numbers must be separated by commas. Numbers without a sign are absolute level indexes, numbers with preceding + or – are relative indexes. Invalid indexes are ignored.

Multiple selection reports also support “Levels”. The resulting hierarchy in a table will contain all absolute levels and relative levels for every item, from the report base.

Self Excluding Children

If you wish the scores for Self to include only the direct reports to the selected unit, and not all employees reporting to levels below the current unit, select Self excl. children.