Set up a drill down interaction

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1. Overview

A drill down interaction lets you navigate one level down in a hierarchy when you click or tap a data point, and filters to the data points that make up the one you selected. For example, you could drill down on the year 2012 to view data broken down by each of its months.

This article shows a basic example of how you can set this type of interaction up to happen on a single click of a data point.

Tip
Viewers can also drill down using the context menu without setting up an interaction ahead of time.

Related video: Interactions

2. Create a dashboard

First, create a metric set and add it to a dashboard in order to show OrderQty by Date as an example.

Dashboard with a metric set
Dashboard with a metric set

3. Set up the drill down interaction

Right-click (or long-tap) over the bar chart on the canvas and select Set Up Interactions.

Click Set Up Interactions
Click Set Up Interactions

From the submenu, select Drill Down.

Click Drill Down
Click Drill Down

In the Set up a Drill Down dialog, you can leave the default settings and submit the dialog, but for this example we are first going to look at the settings Dundas BI applied automatically. Click Set up parameters before continuing.

Set up a Drill Down dialog
Set up a Drill Down dialog

In the Set Up Parameter Mappings dialog, you'll see that two mappings have been added automatically for changing the level and then filtering to the data selection. This is where you can choose which hierarchy is filtered and changed down a level, but no further steps are needed right now. Just close this dialog to return to the Setup dialog and click Submit.

Set Up Parameter Mappings dialog
Set Up Parameter Mappings dialog

4. Test the interaction

Click View in the toolbar, and click a data point (Year 2012) on the bar chart. You should see the level change to Month and the data filtered to 2012.

The chart after clicking on Year 2012 data point
The chart after clicking on Year 2012 data point

To drill back up, you can use the browser Back button while the page remains open, right-click (long-tap) options such as Drill Up, or corresponding filters if they were added to the view.

Tip
You can also add a button with filter actions to reset the level to the top level and the filter to All.

5. See also

Dundas Data Visualization, Inc.
400-15 Gervais Drive
Toronto, ON, Canada
M3C 1Y8

North America: 1.800.463.1492
International: 1.416.467.5100

Dundas Support Hours:
Phone: 9am-6pm, ET, Mon-Fri
Email: 7am-6pm, ET, Mon-Fri