Tech Tip: Understanding Same Level Break – New Feature Added in Web Intelligence 4.2 SP05

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Same Level Break is a new feature added in the Web Intelligence 4.2 service pack – SP05.  With this type of break, the aggregate is displayed at the same level whenever multiple objects are selected for a break. The breaks depend on the layout of the table, meaning that the first break happens whenever a value of the first object in the table layout changes.

The result is that the objects in the break share the same footer and the totals/aggregates are displayed on the same row in the table, as opposed to one for each object’s total and sub-total.

Steps to apply a Same Level Break

• Right-click one of the column to which you want to apply a break.
• Click Break Manage Break.
• In the Manage Breaks dialog box, click Add.
• Select two or more objects and click OK. (Note: You can’t select objects that are already used in other breaks.)
• Back in the Manage Breaks dialog box, click OK.

 

With our regular break properties, we would get one footer row with the aggregate per break on each object. The break priority will determine the hierarchy.

 

Setting up a specific example

How to set up with With Same Level Break

1. Create a querry with Customer State, Order Year, Order Quarter and Revenue.
2. Project the object in a vertical table.
3. Apply Break on Customer State
4. Apply Sum on Revenue
5. Highlight State and Manage break
6. Click Edit and check Year fromn the list of dimension
7. You may have to re-apply the sum if you add one more object to the group.

 

Result of Same Level Break:

 

The same level break is definitely a useful property to get the aggregate at the same level for more than one object. Especially, if you are planning to use 3-4 objects, setting it up with Same Level Break will be faster. I have encountered multiple business cases where this feature could be used right away.  This is often required when creating WebI blocks that will serve as data source tables for another application. Custom aggregation at a few selected levels is a requirement for many businesses, as opposed to sub-totals and totals at each combination of dimensions.

However, if you run into any issue or limitation with the new feature you can still get to the same result using already existing properties, which is the way I achieved the result in the past. Here is how:

How to set up with Without Same Level Break

1. Create a querry with Customer State, Order Year, Order Quarter and Revenue.
2. Project the object in a vertical table.
3. Apply Break on Customer State
4. Apply Break on Year
5. Apply Sum on Revenue.
6. Enter =[Customer State] in the total row for year in State column
7. Delete the State total row

 

 

 

 

More on Same Level Breaks

What if the break objects aren’t sorted?

The footer is displayed for each deepest object value.

What if the order of objects changes?

The break happens at the new deepest object level.

What if an object is added or removed?

The break happens at the new deepest object level.

Hopefully you found this tech tip useful!