How to Create a Hierarchy in Power BI (Explained Simply)

You probably know this already but a hierarchy is a system where elements or entities are ranked over the other.

In Power BI, hierarchy is commonly seen in date and time data.

Here’s an example of a Power BI hierarchy:

Hierarchies in Power BI can be spotted easily because of the hierarchy icon.

Also, hierarchies aren’t only limited to dates.

For example, you could put a hierarchy on production information:

• Product Category
• Product Subcategory
• Color
• Product

So why are hierarchies important in Power BI?

Simple. Data hierarchy allows you to drill up or down on your visual and reveal additional details.

Take a look at hierarchy and drill through in action:

Fortunately, it’s super easy to create a hierarchy in Power BI. Depending on the number of elements you would like to add, you can be done in less than 10 seconds!

By the way, if you would like to create a hierarchy, make sure you’re using Power BI Desktop. One of the differences between Power BI Desktop and Service is that in the desktop version, you’re able to access the data behind the visuals and do changes.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the free retail analysis sample where we created a separate date model to use for this exercise.

To start, go to the data view on your Power BI Desktop:

This is the view where you’ll be able to create a hierarchy for your data.

The following columns we would like to include in the hierarchy are:

• Day
• Month
• Quarter
• Year

To start, select the top-level element.

In our example, the hierarchy would be “Year > Quarter > Month > Day”.

Right-click on that element and select ‘New hierarchy’:

That will now create a new hierarchy with only the ‘Year’ element in it.

Congratulations! You just made your first hierarchy in Power BI.

Let’s rename the hierarchy to “Date Hierarchy”. Right-click on the newly created hierarchy and select ‘Rename’:

Just enter the new name and hit “Enter” on your keyboard.

Another way to do that is by right-clicking the element, then ‘Add to hierarchy’, and select the name of that hierarchy (‘Date Hierarchy’):

After that, you would see the elements you added below the top-level element (‘Year’):

Easy, right? 👍

The problem is:

The arrangement of the elements is wrong. Like in our example, ‘Quarter’ should come before ‘Month’ and ‘Day’.

To change the hierarchy level, right-click on that element and choose to either move up or down.

Let’s move ‘Quarter’ to the top:

Finish moving everything until you get the right order.

As you can see, creating a hierarchy in Power BI is simple and straight to the point. You don’t even need technical knowledge to do it. The important thing is you know your data.