Retirement and Post-Retirement Benefit Plans - Narrative (Details) - HPE 401(k)		12 Months Ended
Jan. 01, 2018	Oct. 31, 2017
Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]
Employer matching contribution	100.00%	50.00%
Employer matching contribution percent of eligible compensation	4.00%	6.00%

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

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