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Automating Hierarchies: Iterative Logic Meets the Recursion Tool

🏷️Tags: Analytics 🔬Analysis Level: Advanced

Updated yesterday

🌟 Introduction

A fast way to trace hierarchical relationships in your data – no matter how many levels deep.

This template uses Savant’s Recursion tool to automatically follow parent–child links (like employee → manager) across multiple levels.

Whether you’re mapping reporting chains, drilling down into bill-of-materials structures, or analyzing category hierarchies, this template delivers a clean, fully expanded view of your data in seconds.

⚡ Why Recursion Replaces Iterative Macros

In tools like Alteryx, mapping hierarchies often requires Iterative Macros – custom workflows that loop through data repeatedly until all relationships are resolved. Savant’s Recursion Tool takes this concept and makes it simple, visual and automated:

  • Iterative: The tool automatically repeats the parent–child mapping process until the full hierarchy is built.

  • Recursive: It doesn’t just loop – it builds the chain level by level, handling complex multi-level relationships without manual intervention.

  • Hierarchical: Perfect for org charts, product structures, or any dataset where relationships span multiple levels.

With Savant, you get the power of iterative workflows without writing or maintaining macros – just configure your parent and child columns, and Savant handles the rest.

💼 Business Impact

Example use cases include:

  • Employee reporting chains in HR datasets

  • Product category rollups for e-commerce analytics

  • Bill-of-materials or component hierarchies in manufacturing data

  • Customer account structures with parent/child entities

Key benefits include:

  • Simplifies complexity: Automatically unravels multi-level relationships without messy manual lookups or nested formulas.

  • Increases visibility: Gives instant insight into organizational structures, product hierarchies, or other parent–child relationships.

  • Saves time: Eliminates repetitive steps – one template handles any depth of hierarchy in a single workflow.

  • Reduces errors: Ensures consistency when tracing relationships across large or frequently changing datasets.

  • Scales easily: Works on small teams or global org charts with thousands of employees and managers.

📥 Data In

  • Source: Any dataset with parent–child relationships

  • Minimum columns:

    • Child ID (ex: Employee ID)

    • Parent ID (ex: Manager ID)

  • Example Input:

Employee ID

Employee Name

Manager ID

1

Alice Johnson

3

2

Ben Thompson

3

3

Carla Fernandez

5

4

Derek Smith

5

5

Evelyn Martinez

📤 Data Out

The Recursion tool creates a fully traced chain for each record.

  • Example Output:

Employee ID

Employee Name

Full Chain

1

Alice Johnson

Alice → Carla → Evelyn

2

Ben Thompson

Ben → Carla → Evelyn

3

Carla Fernandez

Carla → Evelyn

4

Derek Smith

Derek → Evelyn

5

Evelyn Martinez

Evelyn

📝 Template Setup

Follow these steps to set up the AI Header Agent template:

Step 1: Data Input

Replace the example employee–manager dataset with your own table containing parent–child relationships.

Step 2: Configure the Recursion Tool

  • Child Column: Select the column representing the individual (ex: Employee ID)

  • Parent Column: Select the column representing the parent (ex: Manager ID)

🌠 Further Customizations

  1. Add attributes: Include department or region for richer context in the final chain.

  2. Add calculations: Configure aggregations to calculate metrics like total team size, cumulative salaries, or span of control at each level of the hierarchy.

  3. Automate updates: For recurring org chart or hierarchy changes, schedule this template to run automatically.

  4. Chain with other tools: Combine with Summarize or Pivot tools to analyze reporting lines by department, region, or manager span.

  5. Handle multiple hierarchies: Extend this approach to other datasets like product categories, supply chains, or account structures.

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