Comparison of Rollup Methods

You must chose which of two different methods to use when you build an application that rolls up totals.

The chart below discusses the differences between the two methods.

Topic	Classification Rollup Method	Financial Rollup Method
Flexibility	Classification Rollup fields can only roll numbers up through records organized in a hierarchy.	Financial Rollup fields roll up numbers independent of the organization of records.
Complexity	The Classification Rollup mechanism is the simpler of the two. This makes it easier to be correct.	The Financial Rollup mechanism is a two step process, using financial transactions and Financial Rollup fields. Because more details and steps are involved, there are more opportunities to introduce bugs.
User Interface	Maximo® Real Estate and Facilities has special support for viewing records in a hierarchy. This makes it easier for users to explore rolled up numbers.	There is no particular feature in Maximo Real Estate and Facilities that helps users see numbers rolled up using Financial Rollup fields.
Performance	If detail numbers change frequently and rolled up totals must always be kept up-to-date, the Classification Rollup mechanism will have a lot of overhead and perform slowly. Rolling up changed numbers one level of a hierarchy at a time is time consuming. Recomputing all rolled up numbers in a hierarchy is also time consuming. If detail numbers change frequently but rolled up numbers need be up-to-date only occasionally, the Classification Rollup mechanism may have better performance. In a case like this, roll up totals only when they need to be correct. No rollups are done when numbers change, so no overhead is associated with changes.	If rolled up numbers must always be up-to-date, using Financial Rollup fields is usually the best performing option. With a single operation, the posting of a financial transaction, only the fields that need to be updated are updated. If rolled up numbers only need to be up-to-date occasionally and changes to the detail data are frequent, the performance of Financial Rollup fields is less attractive. Financial Rollup fields are updated every time a financial transaction is posted. If the rolled up values seldom need to be updated and changes to the detail are frequent, a lot of time can be wasted keeping rolled up values up-to-date.
UOM and Currency	No unit of measure or currency is associated with Classification Rollup fields.	No unit of measure or currency is associated with a Financial Rollup field. However, a financial token can restrict the numbers that it totals so they all have the same currency or unit of measure.
History	Rolling numbers up through a hierarchy does not leave any record of how the rolled up values came to be what they are. The only clues are the current detail values.	The posted transactions recorded in the database can be used as an historical record of how every Financial Rollup field came to have its current value.
Data Sharing	Rolled up values can be shared with external applications using the same mechanisms available to share any other kind of data in Maximo Real Estate and Facilities.	In addition to the usual mechanisms for sharing data with external applications, data in posted transactions can be accessed directly through the underlying database without interacting with Maximo Real Estate and Facilities.