What is the likelihood of PMF truly supporting a ragged hierarchy as a dimension?

Obviously I could log a request for this, but thought I'd throw the topic up here first.

We've got a couple of scenarios where a dimension that we're loading is a ragged hierarchy -- specifically where it may only be 2 levels deep on one "branch" and it may be 4 levels deep on another "branch". We can model this and load it into PMF but to do it, the dimension has to be set up at the deepest possible level and then dummy values are used to indicate that you're beyond the deepest level of the current branch. Some of this is a result of the limitation of the number of dimensions, so we're thinking of our dimensions as generically as possible -- so it really ends up that we have multiple types of values in a single dimension whereas we'd normally split those into separate dimensions. But even beyond that -- we have a situation where a single dimension is hierarchical but has different levels depending on the branch. My dream would be that PMF would recognize the hierarchy and would know that particular branch of a dimension only goes 2 levels deep and so it wouldn't present the user with the ability to further drill into that dimension.

To come at this at a higher level, our analyst is becoming somewhat frustrated by the number of clicks that are necessary to navigate but also by the fact that it's difficult to tell where she is going next and when she will/should/can stop drilling down a particular path.

This may be a bit "pie-in-the-sky" -- but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask!

We've batted this around for a while. We have even come up with a standard way to handle middle values on ragged hierarchies (using a *** to indicate early terminus of a particular hierarchy branch, as a technique in the loaders for now and eventually as a feature). I believe you are already using that technique? If not, it's a good one.

We don't have plans to address short-path navigation on ragged hierarchy levels in the upcoming 5.0 release. Our feature plate is already full for that. I know it's sometimes a pain to have to make those extra clicks. We will eventually address this, but probably not in 2008.

Yes, I don't want to take undue credit, but I think we might have originated that *** idea.

But yes, it is a good technique and I think it makes it FAIRLY obvious to the end user that they've passed the last node of the branch. Thanks for the update though -- if I see you at Summit, I might pick your brain a little more on this topic and the clicks/usability because I'd be interested in how others have mitigated some of the frustration. It may simply be that there are better ways to use the dashboards/gadgets that we're simply not thinking about.

Regardless, thanks for the quick responses and we'll continue to experiment!

Yes, we admit it - we have now officially stolen your great idea.
Credit where credit is due.
I'll be there at Summit; look forward to chatting.