How to Remove Hierarchy in Power BI
Power BI hierarchies can save you a ton of time, letting you drill down from a high-level view (like a year) into the details (like a specific day) with just a click. But sometimes, they are more hassle than they're worth, especially when Power BI creates them automatically when you don't want them to. This guide will walk you through exactly how to remove and manage hierarchies in Power BI so you can get your reports looking just the way you want.
What Are Hierarchies in Power BI, Anyway?
Before deleting them, it helps to know what you’re working with. A hierarchy is just a logical grouping of related fields that create levels you can navigate. The most common example is a date hierarchy:
Year
Quarter
Month
Day
When you use a date hierarchy in a visual, you can click on a year (like 2023) to "drill down" and see the data broken out by its quarters. Click on a quarter, and you see the months inside it. It’s an incredibly powerful feature for interactive analysis, letting users explore data without needing multiple charts for different timeframes.
You can also create your own hierarchies, such as a geographical hierarchy (Country > State > City) or a product hierarchy (Category > Subcategory > Product Name).
So, Why Would You Want to Remove a Hierarchy?
As useful as they are, there are a few common situations where getting rid of a hierarchy is the right move:
Power BI's "Auto Date/Time" is getting in the way. By default, Power BI automatically creates a date hierarchy for every date field you import. This is often what trips people up. You might just want to use a simple "Order Date" field as-is, but Power BI converts it into a complex hierarchy that complicates your visuals.
You created a hierarchy that's no longer needed. Maybe a reporting requirement changed, or you built it as a test. Keeping it around just clutters your Fields pane and can confuse other report users.
You need to use a single date field for calculations. Certain DAX formulas or specific visuals work better with a simple, continuous date column rather than the broken-down parts of a hierarchy.
A visual is misbehaving. Occasionally, the hierarchy can cause visualizations to group or sort in unintended "drill down-friendly" ways, and reverting to linear values will solve the issue and still provide all the relevant information at even deeper levels — just no drill down is needed.
Method 1: The Quick Fix for Unwanted Date Hierarchies (Turning Off Auto Date/Time)
Let's tackle the biggest culprit first: Power BI’s automatic date hierarchies. If you’re tired of seeing every single date column turn into a hierarchy, you can disable this feature entirely for your report.
This is a global setting for your specific Power BI file (your .PBIX file), and it will prevent Power BI from creating any new date hierarchies and remove the ones it already made.
Here’s how to do it step-by-step:
Navigate to File in the top-left corner of the Power BI Desktop application.
Select Options and settings, and then click on Options.
A new window will pop up. In the "Current File" section of the left-hand menu, click on Data Load.
Look for the "Time intelligence" section. You'll see an option that says "Auto date/time".
Uncheck this box.
Click OK.
When you do this, you’ll notice that all the little calendar icons next to your date fields in the Fields pane disappear. Those fields will now act as simple date columns. If you drag one onto a visual, it will just show the specific date (e.g., "January 15, 2024") instead of the "Year, Quarter, Month, Day" structure.
When to use this method: This is the best approach when you know you won't need automatic date hierarchies for any field in your report and prefer to manage time intelligence manually, perhaps with a custom date calendar table (a common best practice).
Method 2: How to Delete a Manually Created Hierarchy
What if you created a custom hierarchy yourself — say, grouping Product Category and Product Subcategory — and now you want to get rid of it? This is even more straightforward.
Follow these steps:
Find your hierarchy in the Fields pane on the right side of the screen. It will have a special icon indicating it’s a hierarchy.
Right-click on the name of the hierarchy itself (the top-level item with the hierarchy icon).
From the context menu that appears, simply select Delete from model.
A small confirmation window will pop up asking if you're sure. Click Yes.
The hierarchy will be instantly removed. It's important to note that this action only deletes the hierarchy container group. The individual fields that made up the hierarchy (like Product Category and Product Subcategory) will remain in your Fields pane, and you are totally safe to continue including that information in your charts — it merely won't allow for "Drill Downs".
When to use this method: Use this when you need to completely remove a custom grouping you built, whether it was for products, locations, or anything else.
Method 3: How to Edit a Hierarchy (Removing Just One Part)
Sometimes you don't want to destroy the entire hierarchy, you just want to remove one of its levels. For instance, maybe your date hierarchy includes a "Quarter" level, but your business doesn't track things by quarter, so it’s just noise. You can totally remove or re-order the way your hierarchy is presented in Power BI.
You can only edit manually created hierarchies. While you can't directly edit Power BI’s automatic date hierarchies in this way (you'd need to disable them and build your own), this technique works perfectly for any hierarchy you've constructed.
Here’s how to do it:
In the Fields pane, find the hierarchy you want to edit.
Click the small arrow next to its name to expand it and see all its levels.
Find the level you want to remove (e.g., "Quarter" or an incorrect geographic field).
Right-click on that specific field within the hierarchy.
From the menu, select Remove from hierarchy (or on some versions, you might see "Delete from model").
That level is now gone from the hierarchy, but the rest of the levels remain. This is a great way to refine and tidy up your hierarchies without starting from scratch.
Conversely, you can also add a field to an existing hierarchy by simply dragging a new field from the Fields pane and dropping it into the hierarchy group.
Best Practices and Pro Tips
Removing hierarchies is easy, but it’s part of a bigger data modeling picture. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Workaround: Using a Date Field Without its Hierarchy
What if you want to keep the "Auto date/time" feature enabled globally but just want to use a simple, raw date for a single visual?
You don't have to disable anything! When you drag a date field that has an automatic hierarchy into a visual’s field well (like the X-axis), click the small downward arrow next to the field name. You’ll see a choice between "Date Hierarchy" and the name of your field (e.g., "Order Date"). Select the field name ("Order Date") to use it as a continuous date value instead of the hierarchy.
Consider Using a Custom Date Table
For more serious or complex reports, the gold standard is to disable "Auto date/time" and create a dedicated Date Table (sometimes called a Calendar Table). This is a separate table in your model that contains one row for every date. You can add columns for anything you need: fiscal year, week number, workday flags, holiday names, and more.
You then create a relationship from your Date Table to the date columns in your fact tables (like your sales or marketing data). This gives you complete control over time-based data, allows for more advanced calculations, and ensures consistency across your entire report, without Power BI getting in your way by deciding your hierarchy settings for you.
Final Thoughts
Mastering hierarchies in Power BI is about knowing when to use them and when to tell Power BI to back off. Whether you're deleting manual groupings, turning off the automatic date feature, or just carefully editing a structure, these techniques give you full control over your data model and help you build cleaner, more intuitive reports.
Getting your data to present itself correctly in tools like Power BI can often feel like a battle of clicks and menu options. We built Graphed to remove that friction completely. Instead of building data models and managing hierarchies, you can simply connect your data sources — like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce — and ask for what you need in plain English. Want to see sales by country last month? Just ask, and we instantly build the interactive dashboard for you, without you ever having to worry about right-clicking to remove a hierarchy again.