This lesson describes how you can enable the drill-through
feature to seamlessly move from one report to another.
When added, the drill-through feature helps you navigate
from one report to another while retaining contextual information.
For instance, you can navigate from a defect arrival report to a
defect density report for the same project without having to select
the project name again. Drill-through works by passing common parameters
or data between reports.
You can drill-through from one report
(called source) to another (called target) only if they have at least
one parameter or data item in common. The drill-through feature simplifies
the process of passing a parameter between two report queries. In
this tutorial you will use the Defect aging report as the source and
the Defect arrival rate report as the target. Defect aging and arrival
rate both relate to project health, and hence project managers might
want to determine relationships between them.
Decide the
source and target reports
The first step in creating drill-through
reports is to decide the source and target reports. As mentioned,
Defect aging report is the source and the Defect arrival rate report
the target.
Identify the filter parameter
The
drill-through feature works by passing one or more filter parameters
from the source report to the target report. You, therefore, need
to identify which parameters are common between the two reports.
- Make sure that you are in the Public Folders > Sample
Report Definitions > Data Warehouse Reports folder reports
folder in IBM® Cognos® Connection.
- Click on the Defect aging report link to view the report in IBM Cognos Viewer.
Note: The report has two selection prompts: Program and Project.
The Project selection prompt confirms the existence of the project
parameter.
- Close the report. You need to check if the target report also
contains the project parameter.
- Click the Defect arrival rate report in IBM Cognos Connection.
Note: The
report has two prompts: Project and Program. The Project selection
prompt confirms the existence of the Project parameter.
You
can therefore use this Project parameter as the drill-down parameter
between the two reports.
Confirm the filter expression in the target report
Next,
you need to confirm that the target report was configured to accept
the Project parameter as a filter expression. For the drill-through
feature to work, both the source and target reports must have a common
filter expression as parameter.
- Copy both reports to My Folders. Follow
the steps in the previous tutorial.
- In Report Studio, open the Defect arrival
rate report.
- On the Explorer bar, click Query Explorer,
and select Defect from the queries list.
- Confirm that the filter expression [Project]=?Project? exists.
- Click validate expression and then OK.
- Click the filter and in the Properties pane,
set Usage to Optional. This specifies that
you do not need to click a value in the source report.
- Save the report.
Create a drill-through link in the source report
In
this step you create a link that you need to click for drilling through
to the Defect arrival rate report.
- Open the source report and click the graph ‘Days spent in each
state' that will serve as the starting point for the drill-through
link.
- On the Properties pane, double-click the Drill-Through
Definitions property. This launches the Drill-through-definitions window.
You can also click on the tool bar to open the window.
- In the Drill-through-definitions window,
click the New drill-through definition icon
at the bottom left of the window.
- On the Target Report tab, click the ellipsis
(...) next to the Report box, and select the
Defect arrival rate report.
- To edit the parameters that need to be passed to the target report,
below the Parameters box, click Edit
.
- In the Parameters window click the Methods list
and select ‘Pass parameter value'.
- Click theValue list and select Project.
- Click OK. You have now selected the Defect
Arrival Rate report as the target report.
- Select the Open in New Window checkbox.
This makes sure that the target report opens in a new window when
you drill through to it.
- Click OK.
- To run the Defect aging report, click Run
.
- When the report opens, select PPMP from the Program list,
and Auction from the Project list.
- Click the ‘Days spent in each state' graph. This opens the
‘Defect arrival rate' report. View the report and notice that
the Auction project is preselected. You can therefore view different
data for the same project without having to select the project every
time.
- Save the report.