Hierarchies are used to organize measures that are contained in a cube. In Spotfire, attribute hierarchies and single-level user hierarchies are represented as columns, whereas multi-level hierarchies are represented as hierarchies.

In Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, attributes are, by default, organized into two-level hierarchies consisting of a leaf level and an optional 'All' level. The All level contains a single member – the All member – which represents the aggregated value of the attribute's members across the related measures. Note that if the hierarchy is non-aggregatable, the All level is not created.

Henceforth, this structure is called an attribute hierarchy, to distinguish it from a user hierarchy. A user hierarchy is a user-defined hierarchy of attributes that is used in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services to organize the members of a dimension into a hierarchical structure that provide navigation (drill-down, drill-up) paths, by which users can browse the data. The positions of members within the hierarchy are controlled by the order of the attributes in the hierarchy's definition. Each attribute in the hierarchy definition constitutes a level in the hierarchy.

Attribute hierarchies are represented as a single column in Spotfire, containing the leaf level members and an implicit All member (if defined). The All member is not visible as a column value in Spotfire.

User hierarchies are represented as hierarchies in Spotfire unless the user hierarchy is a single level (1 level) hierarchy. Then the hierarchy is represented as a column in Spotfire.