Part of a whole
Decomposition tree
Breaks an aggregate into successive dimension values to explore contributors.
- Diagram
- Contribution
- Drill-down
What it answers
Which dimensions explain a large aggregate?
- Shape
- Branching aggregate-value nodes
- What it shows
- Large contributors and conditional breakdowns.
Example
The question
Why is revenue below plan: which region, then which product?
Revenue gap to plan broken down step by step (EUR million)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Interactive contribution drill-down.
Avoid it when
Nonadditive measures decomposed with an invalid aggregation.
How to read it
Read each split as a partition of the current node.
Note
Dimension order may be selected interactively.
The data you need
- Layout
- Wide fact table
- Fields
- RecordID: text; Dimension1...DimensionN: categorical columns; Value: number
- One row is
- One measured record with its descriptive dimensions. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Define aggregation and hierarchy rules. Avoid double-counting already aggregated records.
- Optional
- Weight,Date,additional drill-down dimensions.
- Preparation
- Validate the input grain and missing values. Define aggregation and hierarchy rules. Avoid double-counting already aggregated records.
- Units
- Relationships and positions have no numeric unit by default. Label any counts, durations, probabilities or weights separately.
Worked example
Rows North-A30, North-B20, South-A40 total 90. Split by Region: North 50, South 40; splitNorth by Product:30 and 20.
| RecordID | Region | Product | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | North | A | 30 |
| R2 | North | B | 20 |
| R3 | South | A | 40 |
