Tree View for Hierarchical Data

Flat lists work for flat data. When data has inherent hierarchy — categories that contain subcategories, departments that contain teams, projects that contain sub-projects — a flat list obscures the structure that gives the data meaning.

Tree view surfaces that hierarchy directly in the list.

Expand and Collapse

When a list view detects a parent-child relationship in the object type, it renders the data in a tree structure. Parent records show a disclosure triangle. Click to expand and see the children. Click again to collapse.

The visual indentation makes hierarchy visible at a glance. You can see which records are top-level, which belong to which parent, and how deep the nesting goes — all without navigating between multiple list views.

Hierarchical in the Data, Hierarchical in the View

Tree view works with data that has an explicit parent-child relationship defined. When a "Category" object type has a "parent category" relation field pointing to itself, the list view can use that relationship to build the tree.

This is standard data modeling — the hierarchy lives in the data, and the view reflects it. No special configuration is needed beyond defining the self-referential relationship.

Browse Without Getting Lost

Hierarchical data can be deep. A product category tree might have three or four levels. An organizational chart might have six. Tree view keeps you oriented as you browse — you can see the path from root to any node through the visual indentation.

Collapse branches you've reviewed and don't need visible. Expand only the sections relevant to your current task. The tree state is maintained as you navigate within the view.

Actions Apply at Any Level

Record actions — edit, delete, move, export — apply to records at any level of the tree. Right-click any node to access its context menu. Select a parent record to apply bulk actions that include all its children, or select individual records to act on them specifically.

Bulk operations on hierarchical data can be configured to cascade: deleting a parent category can include a prompt about how to handle its child records — reassign, delete along with the parent, or leave as top-level orphans.

When Flat Isn't Enough

Not all data benefits from tree view. For flat data, a standard list is faster to scan. But for data that's genuinely hierarchical — product taxonomies, organizational structures, document folders, location hierarchies — the tree representation matches the mental model your team already has for the data.

The right view for the right data structure.