Sage Intelligence Reporting Creating a Dynamic Drill Down. August 2014

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Ginger Porter
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1 Sage Intelligence Reporting Creating a Dynamic Drill Down August 2014

Overview The Drill Down tool allows you to create a drill down to interrogate data in your Excel reports dynamically. Creating a drill down requires two reports.

2 Overview The Drill Down tool allows you to create a drill down to interrogate data in your Excel reports dynamically. Creating a drill down requires two reports. The first is a typical report that you use or create in Sage Intelligence and you configure and run the drill down in that report. The second report contains the detailed data that you want to return relating to the first report and requires that there is one or more fields in common with the first report. When the drill down is run, cell values are passed from the first report to parameters defined in the second report. The data in the second report is filtered based on the parameters and output to you. The data is displayed in a grid-style window that provides options to transfer it to Excel if you want to perform further analysis. From this point on we will refer to the first report as the drill from report and the second report as the drill to report. For the purpose of this explanation we will use the example of a Sales Dashboard report containing a Customer Sales dashboard and a Product Sales dashboard with drill downs to transactions by customer and transactions by product. The Drill Down tool can be accessed in Excel by going to the BI Tools tab and clicking on Drill Down from the Tools grouping. The tool includes a Select Drill Down window and a Configure Drill Down window. Select Drill Down window: The Select Drill Down window lists the available drill downs with their parameters and gives you the options to execute, edit, add and remove drill downs. If you add a new drill down or edit an existing one, the Configure Drill Down window will appear. Configure Drill Down window: The Configure Drill Down window allows you to create the definition of a drill down. Definitions are saved with the Excel template which must be linked back to the report for the changes to persist. The properties of a drill down definition are listed below: Drill Down Defined Code: A unique code for the drill down within the Excel workbook. This code is assigned by Intelligence and should not be changed. Drill Down Descriptive Name: A meaningful name used to identify the drill down. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 2 of 7

Report ID/Code: The Intelligence Report ID of the report you are drilling down to. The Report ID is listed on the Property tab of a report in Report Manager.

This must be the Excel worksheet name or the word "ActiveSheet" for the drill down to work from any sheet in the workbook.

3 Report ID/Code: The Intelligence Report ID of the report you are drilling down to. The Report ID is listed on the Property tab of a report in Report Manager. You can also use the lookup to select from the list of existing reports. Source Sheet: The source sheet used to interrogate from. This is the sheet that has the parameters for the report. This must be the Excel worksheet name or the word "ActiveSheet" for the drill down to work from any sheet in the workbook. Report Parameter Columns: A semi-colon delimited list of the column numbers or names used to define where to obtain the report parameter data from. Quick DrillDown / DrillDown to Workbook: Gives you the choice of having the output displayed in grid-style (in a window) or direct to workbook style. Creating a Drill Down The following process provides you with the steps to create a drill down and gives you an example to make the explanation more meaningful. 1. Ensure you have the right Container if a suitable Container doesn t already exist, with the fields required for both your drill from and drill to reports, then create a new one in the Connector. In our example we have used a Dashboard Sales Details Container. 2. Create the report that you wish to drill to: a. In the Report Manager, create a new report and give it a descriptive name that will explain its purpose of being the drill to report. Include the columns that you would like to appear in the report. This is determined by the information you would like to see in the drill down. We have named our report Customer Drill Down Report. You may also find that there are existing reports that meet your needs. b. Add a parameter to the report for each column in the drill from report that you would like to filter the data on. Use the Equal To comparison operator but do not set a default value for it. In the drill from report, we will configure the Drill Down tool to use the CustomerName field as its reference field, so we have added a parameter in the drill to report based on the CustomerName field. c. Run the report to test it, using any value from the lookup. Close the report. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 3 of 7

d. From the Properties tab, record the report ID of the report. In our case the report ID is 88. 3. Create the report you wish to drill from: a.

You could also use an existing report so long it has the relevant fields in common with the drill to report.

4 d. From the Properties tab, record the report ID of the report. In our case the report ID is Create the report you wish to drill from: a. In Report Manager, create a second report and add the columns you need for the layout you intend to create. You could also use an existing report so long it has the relevant fields in common with the drill to report. We have called our report Sales Dashboard. b. Run out the report and create your desired layout. Our report includes dashboards for Sales by Customer and Sales by Product. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 4 of 7

4. Configuring the Drill Down tool: a. In your drill from report, open the Drill Down tool by selecting the BI Tools tab and then clicking on Drill Down from the Tools grouping. b. A dialogue box will appear telling you that the Drill Down tool needs to make changes to the work book.

5 4. Configuring the Drill Down tool: a. In your drill from report, open the Drill Down tool by selecting the BI Tools tab and then clicking on Drill Down from the Tools grouping. b. A dialogue box will appear telling you that the Drill Down tool needs to make changes to the work book. c. Click Yes to continue. The dialogue box will close and the Configure Drill Down dialogue will appear. d. Add a description for the drill down in the Drill Down Descriptive Name field. We have used Customer Transactions. e. Enter the report ID of the drill to report in the Report ID/Code field. Ours was 88. Alternatively click on the ellipses next to the Report ID/Code and select the drill to report from the list. Remember reports can have the same name, but each report has a unique ID number. f. Select the sheet containing your layout from the Source Sheet dropdown list. We have used Sheet3. You could also select ActiveSheet. g. In the Report Parameter Columns field, enter the numbers of the columns that will act as the reference fields for the drill drown, i.e. the columns in the drill from report that will act as the input to the parameters that were created in the drill to report. We used one parameter of CustomerName. Customer names are listed in the first columns of the Customer Sales dashboard and is column 2 in the worksheet. h. Leave Quick Drill down Data to Data Window selected. The drill down is now configured. i. Click OK to close the Configure Drill Down dialogue. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 5 of 7

6 j. The Select Drill Down dialogue will be shown with the Transactions by Customer drill down listed. k. Click Close to return to your layout. You can repeat the above steps if you want to create additional drill downs. For example, we have created a Product Drill Down Report and have configured a Transactions by Product drill down which uses the product names in column 5 of the Sales Dashboard report. 5. Running a drill down: a. In your drill from report, select the cell of a value you would like drill down on and then open the Drill Down tool. In the Sales Dashboard report, let s say we would like to view all sales transactions that have been made to Fruity Joes. Select cell B9 and click on Drill Down on the BI Tools tab, the Select Drill Down dialogue will be shown. b. Select the drill down you would like to run and click Execute. We have selected Transactions by Customer. c. The results of the drill down will be shown in the grid-style window. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 6 of 7

7 d. If you want to do more analysis on the data, you can export the information from the grid-style window to Excel. To do this use the Data to Excel menu. For example, click on Data To Excel, Copy To (with headings), then New Excel Sheet in Active Book. The data will be copied to a new sheet in the Sales Dashboard report. Creating a Dynamic Drill Down Page 7 of 7

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