Organize data using hierarchical business mappings

How does it work?

Imagine you need to report on costs at different levels of cost ownership within your organization: Team, Department, and Group. You want a Business Dimension for each level and you would typically need to create separate Business Mappings for each. However, these dimensions follow a hierarchical structure — Teams roll up to Departments, which in turn roll up to Groups.

To define these relationships using standard Business Mappings, you would need to create statements specifying how each Team maps to a Department and how each Department maps to a Group. While this approach may work for a small number of Teams, Departments, and Groups, it becomes difficult to manage at scale—especially when rollup relationships change over time (e.g., new Teams or Departments are added, or reporting structures are reorganized).

A Hierarchical Business Mapping (HBM) simplifies this process by allowing you to define a single Business Mapping that applies to multiple Business Dimensions in a structured rollup hierarchy. Instead of manually defining individual Business Mappings using complex and inter-dependent IF-THEN style logic, you can create the entire hierarchy using a simple declarative approach:

1. Select a Business Dimension to use as the base of your hierarchy (e.g., Team).
2. Specify the additional hierarchy levels you want (e.g., Department and Group).
3. Upload a mapping file that specifies how values in each tier relate to their parent tier.

Cloudability automatically generates new Business Dimensions and Business Mapping statements for each hierarchy level. If rollup relationships change—such as the addition or removal of Departments or Groups—you simply upload a new mapping file, and the system updates all Business Mapping statements accordingly. This ensures that the correct values of Team, Department, and Group are assigned consistently to guarantee accurate cost rollups.

Additionally, the Hierarchical Business Mapping can be used to create Views that align with the HBM cost rollup structure. See Organize Views Using Hierarchical Views to learn more.

What is a mapping file?

A mapping file is a structured way to define how values in each Hierarchical Business Mapping (HBM) tier roll up to their parent tier. It is a table (CSV file), where:

• The leftmost column represents the base dimension.
• Each subsequent column represents a parent tier in the hierarchy.
• Each row defines how a value in the base dimension maps to its parent tiers.

For example, the table below shows a mapping file for an HBM where Team is the base dimension, rolling up into Department and then Group. There are 10 Teams (Team 1 through Team 10), and each row specifies how a Team maps to its corresponding Department and Group.

For illustrative purposes, here is the same table but reformatted to highlight the hierarchical relationships between Teams, Departments, and Groups. This format makes it easier to see how Groups are composed of multiple Departments, and in turn, how each Department contains specific Teams.

In this example mapping file:

• Group X includes Dept A and Dept B:
  • Dept A consists of Team 1 and Team 4.
  • Dept B consists of Team 3, Team 6, and Team 9.
• Group Y includes Dept C and Dept D:
  • Dept C consists of Team 5, Team 7, and Team 10.
  • Dept D consists of Team 2 and Team 8.

Hierarchical Business Dimension (HBM) Concepts

Name

The name of the overall hierarchy. This is a required attribute. Choose a name that clearly conveys its overall structure or purpose, as it will appear as the root node for the hierarchy – i.e. the name of the top-level View if you create a Hierarchical View structure for the HBM.

Base Dimension

Every hierarchy is built on top of a base business dimension. This must be an existing business dimension, and cannot be a dimension used in another HBM.

Hierarchy Layers

Additional hierarchy (roll up) layers. Each layer must have a name, and that name must be unique (cannot be the name of an existing business dimension). These will be generated as new business dimensions upon completion of the HBM setup.

How to set up Hierarchical Business Mappings

Listing and reviewing hierarchical business dimensions

From the Business Mappings home page, under the Hierarchical Dimensions tab, you can see a list of all the hierarchical business dimensions you have set up.

Creating hierarchical business dimensions

To create a new hierarchical business dimension:

1. On the Hierarchical Dimensions tab, select New Business Dimension Hierarchy from the Add menu.

2. The Create Dimension Hierarchy drawer will open on the Overview step > Select Next to advance to the next step (Define Layers).

   

3. Give the hierarchy a name > type the desired name (e.g., Cost Org) in the Hierarchy Name field.

   

   Note:

   The hierarchy name is used as the root View name its corresponding Hierarchical View. See Organize Views using Hierarchical Views to learn more.

4. Select an existing business dimension as the base of the hierarchy > Click the select the base dimension dropdown and pick a dimension from the list (e.g. Team).

   

   Note:

   You must select a base dimension before you will be able to add hierarchy layers.

5. Add additional layers to the hierarchy > click the Add Hierarchy Layer button and enter the desired dimension name (e.g. Department) in the modal that appears. Click Add.

   

   Note:

   Default Value is not used and can be ignored.

6. Repeat Step 5 to add additional hierarchy layers. You may add up to a total of four (4) layers on top of the base dimension. Click Next to finish adding layers to advance to the next step (Import Values).

   

7. Upload a mapping file that describes how base dimension values map to parent tier values > click browse for a file or drag/drop a CSV file into the import box. Click Import to import the mapping file and create the HBM.

   

   Note:

   Clicking the Export the CSV template link will download a template CSV file pre-populated with the current base dimension values ready to be filled in with parent dimension values.

Editing hierarchical business dimensions

To modify an existing hierarchical business mapping:

1. Select the Edit Business Mapping option from the Options (gear) menu. This will open the Edit Dimension Hierarchy drawer on the Import Values step.

2. Upload a revised mapping file > click browse for a file or drag/drop a CSV file into the import box. Click Update to import the mapping file and update the HBM with the new mappings.

   

   Note:

   Any associated Hierarchical View will automatically update to mirror the changes in the revised mapping.

   For more information, refer to Organize Views using Hierarchical Views.

Deleting hierarchical business dimensions

To delete an existing hierarchical business mapping, select the Delete Business Mapping option from the Options (gear) menu. This will remove the hierarchical business mapping from the system and delete the HBM tier business dimensions, but not the base business dimension.