Difference between hierarchy vs dragging individual fields on axis?

[tvaishnav]

I was under the impression that hierarchy is needed to create drill downs.I just found out that I can simple drag fields on axis on visualization to create drills. I am just curious to know what is the exact use of hierarchy? How does it different from dragging fields?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@tvaishnav,

Hierarchy can only be created by using the columns in a same table. Hierarchy improves the performance in iteration since you iterate only the existing set of columns, rather than iterating existing + non-exsiting set of columns (due to traversing of relationship using left outer join)