In our last Power BI training in Sydney, we discussed the ‘drill through pages’ and ‘drill across report’ feature in Power. These features are used to enhance the reporting experience. Using the drill through feature, you can focus on a specific entity inside the same report. However, you can also drill across different reports in Power BI. This blog post provides a brief introduction to these features using examples. In first half of the blog post, drilling through pages in the report is discussed and in the second half of the post, drilling across the report is discussed.
Drilling Through Pages in the Report
Power BI allows you to focus on the Details in your report by providing a mechanism to drill through the pages of the report.The report we are using for this blog post contains two pages where the first page is the Product Line – Review page providing a quick review
The second page contains the detailed view for the Product Line.
To create drill through pages in the report:
1.In the page selection area, click on the Product Line – Review.
2.From the Sales table, drag the Product Line column to the Drill Through value
3.Now, In the page selection area, click on the Product Line – Details page.
4.Drag the Product Line column from sales table to the Drill Through value section.
For drill-through to work, the same drill through column should be used in the both pages.
5.Navigate back to the Product Line – Review page.
6.In the table, right click on Mountaineering Equipment.
7.Click on Drill Through.
8.Click on Product Line – Details.
When the drill through pages is enabled an arrow icon appears on the top of both pages.
The Product Line – Details page is filtered based on the selection.
Drilling across Reports
Let’s suppose that the two report pages discussed in the last section were a part of two different reports. How can you drill through? Power BI allows you to Drill Through across reports using Cross Report Drill Through feature.
For this blog post we have two different reports:
· Source
Report.
· Target
Report.
The source report will be used to initiate Drill Through. This report contains the Product Line – Review page providing a quick review.
This Target file is the destination of Drill Through across report filter. This report contains the second page contains the detailed view.
For cross-report drill through feature to work properly, both the reports should:
- Have the same column name and table name used for drill through functionality.
- Published in the same Workspace App.
To drill through across the report
1.Open the Source report.
2.Turn off the Cross-Report toggle button in the Drill Through section.
3.Drag the Product Line column from Sales Table into the Drill Through value
4.Click on File> Options and Settings > Options.
5.Click on Report Settings in the Current File section.
6.Select the check box allowing the Drill Through across the report.
7.Click OK.
8.Publish the report to Power BI Pro Service.
9.Open the report Tpbix
10.Turn on the Cross-Report toggle button in the drill through section.
Cross drill through is set on in the target and set off in the source to make sure that report can be navigated in one direction.
11.Drag the Product Line column from the Sales Table into the Drill Through value
12.Click on File > Options and Settings > Options.
13.Click on Report Settings in the Current File section.
14.Select the check box allowing the Drill Through across the report.
15.Click OK.
16.Publish the report to Power BI Pro Service.
17.Log on to your Power BI Pro account.
18.Open the report Source in the Power BI Pro service.
19.Right click on Camping Equipment.
20.Click on Drill Through.
The target page option automatically appears in the drill through.
21.Click on Product Line Details [Target].
You are directed to the detailed page.
Conclusion:
Drill through and across the reports in Power BI enhance the reporting if they are used correctly. With Power BI drill through features, you can jump between report pages to get information about a particular entity. Power BI drill across allows you to navigate between different reports. Both of these reports must be configured correctly to ensure smooth working. This blog post reviews the drill through and drill across features in Power BI using examples.
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