Drill Down and Drill Up

You can drill down and drill up to explore different aspects of your business and move between levels of information. For example, you can examine revenue for an entire product line and then drill down to see revenue for each individual product in the line. When you finish viewing individual product revenue, you can drill back up. After you familiarize yourself with the hierarchy, you can drill down and drill up multiple levels at a time. If you want to examine the impact of a single aspect of your business on the whole, you can drill down to the lowest-level category in a dimension.

When you drill down on a nested category, some information may be removed. For example, a report shows Years in the rows and Quarters as nested categories. If you drill down on a Quarter, the redundant Years level is removed. The available drill-down and drill-up features depend on the display type you choose.

Different Paths to a Category

Your PowerPlay administrator can define multiple paths in a dimension that lead to the same categories. A primary drill-down path is the main path in a dimension. An alternate drill-down path is another path in the same dimension leading to the same categories. For example, the main path of the Years dimension is by year and one of its alternate paths is by Current Month. Both of these paths drill down to the product categories.

Restricted Data Values

Your PowerPlay administrator can build security rules into cubes where data is sensitive, for example in financial applications. When PowerPlay shows a category level for which you do not have the correct security access, you will see the word "denied" instead of a data value. When you drill down on a category, you cannot view a lower level of a restricted data value. PowerPlay Web also shows the word denied for summary totals of a category that include this restricted data value.

Step to Drill Down

• To drill down a level within one category in the PowerPlay Web display, click the column heading link.

The next level categories replace the column headings in the display.

Tips

• To drill down using the dimension viewer, choose one of the following options:
  • Right-click the next level category in the dimension viewer, and then click either Replace Rows or Replace Columns.
  • In the dimension viewer, expand the dimension to locate the next level category in the dimension, click the next level category, and then drag it to the column heading area or the row heading area.
• To choose a category level from the dimension line, click the dimension, and then click the lower-level category you want to show in the display.
• To drill down a level across all categories in the PowerPlay Web display, right-click the column or row level selector area, and then click Down a Level.

Note: The column level selector area is located to the immediate right of the first column heading area. The row level selector area is located immediately above the first row heading area.

Steps to Drill Down Multiple Levels

1. In the dimension viewer, expand the dimensions to locate the category level you want to show in the display.
2. Click the category level, and then drag it to the column heading area or the row heading area.

Tips

• You can also right-click the category level in the dimension viewer, and then click either Replace Rows or Replace Columns.
• To drill down multiple levels from the dimension line, click the dimension, and then pause the pointer on the next category level to expose the next level of categories. Continue to expose the lower-level categories, and then click the category level you want to show in the display.
• To drill down multiple levels in the PowerPlay Web display, click the column heading links until you reach the category level you want to show in the display.
• In crosstab displays, you can double-click a data value to drill down directly to the categories associated with the value.

Steps to Drill Up

1. In the dimension viewer, locate the category level you want to show in the display.
2. Click the category level, and then drag it to the column heading area or the row heading area.

Tips

• You can also right-click the category level in the dimension viewer, and then click either Replace Rows or Replace Columns.
• To drill up from the dimension line, click the dimension, and then click the category level you want to drill up to.
• To drill up a level in the PowerPlay Web display, right-click the column or row level selector area, and then click Up a Level.

Note: The column level selector area is located to the immediate right of the first column heading area. The row level selector area is located immediately above the first row heading area.

• To drill up to parent row and column categories, double-click the data value where the row and column intersect.