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Lesson 2.2: Enable drill through in the sample report

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.
  1. Make sure that you are in the Public Folders > Sample Report Definitions > Data Warehouse Reports folder reports folder in IBM® Cognos® Connection.
  2. 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.
  3. Close the report. You need to check if the target report also contains the project parameter.
  4. 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.
  1. Copy both reports to My Folders. Follow the steps in the previous tutorial.
  2. In Report Studio, open the Defect arrival rate report.
  3. On the Explorer bar, click Query Explorer, and select Defect from the queries list.
  4. Confirm that the filter expression [Project]=?Project? exists.
  5. Click validate expression and then OK.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. In the Drill-through-definitions window, click the New drill-through definition icon at the bottom left of the window.
  4. On the Target Report tab, click the ellipsis (...) next to the Report box, and select the Defect arrival rate report.
  5. To edit the parameters that need to be passed to the target report, below the Parameters box, click Edit edit icon .
  6. In the Parameters window click the Methods list and select ‘Pass parameter value'.
  7. Click theValue list and select Project.
  8. Click OK. You have now selected the Defect Arrival Rate report as the target report.
  9. 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.
  10. Click OK.
  11. To run the Defect aging report, click Run run icon.
  12. When the report opens, select PPMP from the Program list, and Auction from the Project list.
  13. 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.
  14. Save the report.

Lesson checkpoint

The lesson describes a simple drill-through example to seamlessly navigate from one report to another without having to re-enter contextual information. You can use the same steps to build more complex scenarios involving multiple reports and parameters.
Project managers can make use of the drill-through feature along with report customization to build reporting applications that are comprehensive yet specifically tailored to their own complex scenarios and project situations. For more information about how to customize reports and dashboards, see IBM Cognos Connection User Guide and Report Studio Professional Authoring Guide.
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