Using the Tree View

The Tree View is used to present and navigate structured, tabular data hierarchically. Two kinds of 'tree' hierarchies can be created and managed in Omniscope: Pure and Comparative. Pure hierarchies have one unique record at each node (point on the tree) and the child nodes are also unique. Examples of Pure hierarchies are organisation charts and genealogical 'family trees', where each record is a person, or web site 'maps', where each record is a page on the site (to see an example, download the .IOK file version of our site map with Google Analytics data included (coming soon). Comparative hierarchies have clusters of records at each node, and each record is reproduced in its parent. Almost any data set can be represented as a Comparative hierarchy, including also Pure hierarchies.

Configuring Comparative hierarchies- By default, Omniscope will display data sets as Comparative hierarchies, like the right-hand view in the example above. In the right-hand view, each box (node) represents a groups of employees sharing specified Category values. To create a Comparative hierarchy display like this, it suffices to have some Category fields in the data such as Age, Sex, Location, etc. Select the Category fields you want to display using the Fields drop-down menu on the View Toolbar. Click on a node (box) to isolate its children, then click on the underlined node name to show the Details pop-up for the record(s) at that node. Notice that you are selecting, rather than filtering, so the Reset command may not be available. To display all nodes (boxes) again, click on the very top level node (box) in the tree, or else use the Deselect command on the Main Toolbar.

Configuring Pure hierarchies: The left hand view in the example above is a Pure hierarchy, where each box (node) represents a level in the tree relative to all the other employees. To display and navigate a pure hierarchy, like the left-hand view in the example above, requires that your data include a number of cascaded levels, as illustrated in the combined Table and Tree view image below showing the data organised by levels; Level 1, Level 2... to Level 5.

This is a data 'cascade' or 'waterfall', where the first node record (the CEO) is identified by placing the record in the first level 'Level 1' with blanks in all the other levels. The value 'CEO' also appears in Level 1 for all other records too, since they are all children of this node. In Level 2, the Sales Director (Michael Wood) appears once with blanks downstream for himself. All the Sales staff reporting to him also have 'Sales' in Level 2. This 'waterfall' of levels and blanks defines the structure of the Pure hierarchy.

The full data set is in two parts; the input 'Level' fields that determine the structure of the tree (who works for who, who is a parent and who is a child, etc.), and the comparative fields (age, salary, hair colour, birthday etc.) that capture attributes of each person. For data sets that have this dual content, the Tree View can be navigated as a Pure hierarchy, while still permitting querying on comparative attributes. In Pure hierarchy mode, the Tree View can be used most effectively in parallel with other views that can be used to query the comparative attributes, while the Tree View updates to show which individuals share the queried attributes and their position in the structure.

To display a Pure hierarchy in the Tree view, first show only the Level fields in the desired order, then click Pure Hierarchy in the View Tools drop-down menu on the View Toolbar. Omniscope will switch the tree to Pure mode, and there will be only one record in each node. A slider dialog will appear, allowing you to specify how many columns from left to right have been used to define the tree:

At any time, you can change a Pure hierarchy display back to a Comparative hierarchy. To switch back to Pure hierarchy again you must again indicate the extent of the columns that define the structure of the tree using the dialog above. More help configuring data layout for both Pure and Comparative hierarchies is available in this tutorial file.

Tree View controls

Selection is done by clicking on a node (box). When a node is selected, its branch is selected and the box expands to show links to Show details pop-ups. All nodes on non-selected branches are faded (unless AutoHide is 'On', in which case they are hidden). In Pure mode, selected nodes will exhibit details about one individual, rather than the downstream records, although the selection is still of the branch including all downstream nodes. For example, you can select the whole Finance department branch, but drill down from the top departmental node (box) directly to details about the Finance Director, without displaying the records for the whole department, as would occur in a Comparative hierarchy display.

In Comparative hierarchy, you can click and drag the headers above each node to change the order of the fields, but the order of the levels in Pure hierarchies are fixed in the data and cannot be changed this way. Clicking on the header above a node will colour the tree downstream from that point. When there are too many branches to display, the boxes will group into ‘Other’ nodes that will expand again whenever there is space to display the individual branches.

Selected nodes/branches can be 'pruned' and restored using power queries with the Move, Keep and Reset commands on the Main Toolbar. Note: When AutoHide is on, branches which are not selected are hidden, rather than faded. If you have not yet executed a Move or a Keep command, all the records are still in the target universe. To display all the nodes/branches in the tree again, you must use the Deselect, not the Reset command (which may be be greyed out) on the Main Toolbar, or click on the very top node of the tree.

Tree View Toolbar

The Tree View Toolbar contains the View Tools drop-down menu, the Fields drop-down pick list, Colour field chooser and the AutoHide On/Off option. Other commands available on the View Toolbar are common to all views and documented here.

Fields- hide or show additional fields in the tree. In a Comparative hierarchy, you can also use this menu to arrange the display order by dragging fields up or down using the drag handles.

Colour- overrides any header-selected colouring and colours the nodes/branches by any other field chosen from a drop down menu

AutoHide- when 'On', fully hides (rather than fades) non-selected branches when one branch is selected in the tree

Show end children- {deprecated}

Pure/Comparative hierarchy- used to switch between Pure and Comparative hierarchy displays (see above).

Unselected fading level- sets the degree of fading for unselected branches/nodes whenever AutoHide is Off.

Show cell barometers- shows/hides an optional display of bar-type indicators within the boxes showing the proportion of records contained on the branches below.

Show cell pie charts- shows/hides an optional display of pie chart indicators within the boxes showing the proportion of records contained on the branches below.

Text size- increases/decreases the size of the text within the nodes (dense trees will benefit from a smaller text size).

Limit box size- only displayed for Comparative hierarchies, allows you to choose between setting all box heights the same, or having upstream boxes taller than downstream. Box width is not affected.

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