Aggregate nodes (gather all content in a parent node)

If you are working with nodes in a hierarchy, you can aggregate all the coding references from the child nodes at the parent node. Then, when you open the parent node, you can see the material coded directly at the parent node as well as any material coded at its first-level child nodes.

Aggregation is turned off by default.

The An icon representing aggregation: a circle on top with two circles below icon in the Aggregate column indicates that aggregation is turned on. This column is not visible by default—you can add the column to your node List View.

For example, you could turn on node aggregation for the parent nodes in this hierarchy:

  • respondents
    • farmers
      • Giacomo
      • Pat
    • fisheries
      • Franz
      • Vikram

Then you could open:

  • respondents to see all coded material
  • farmers to see all material coded at farmers, Giacomo or Pat
  • fisheries to see all material coded at fisheries, Franz or Vikram

If you add child nodes, the content is automatically rolled up to the parent (if the parent has aggregation turned on).

NOTE

  • You may get different results in queries and visualizations if you turn on aggregation for a node.
  • When NVivo counts the references in an aggregated node, it includes all the references coded directly at the node as well as the references in first-level child nodes. If the same reference is coded at multiple levels, it will be counted multiple times.

Turn node aggregation on or off

  1. In List View click the parent node.
  2. On the Home tab, in the Item group, click Properties.
  3. Select the Aggregate coding from child nodes check box.

NOTE  When working with nodes in List View, you can display a column to see which nodes have aggregation turned on—on the View tab in the List View group, click Customize. Customize the workspace