Linking Reports with Auto Linking and Auto Drill

In this section:

When you view a report, you can enhance your analytical insight by drilling down from a summary to a detailed report. Similarly, you may want to drill up from a detailed report, to a summary report, or drill across to see similar information in different contexts.

WebFOCUS App Studio provides two features that automate the creation of links that enable these drilldowns:

These features magnify your analytical capabilities while saving you the significant development and maintenance time required by numerous manual links.

However, you can also create individual drill-down procedures, in cases where that may be advantageous. For more information, see Creating Drill-Down Hyperlinks Using the Drill Down Command.

Link to Predefined Reports, Charts, and Visualizations Using Auto Linking

How to:

Use the Auto Linking feature to connect a source procedure to one or more predefined target reports, charts, or visualizations. The links that enable these connections are created automatically by the Auto Linking feature.

The Auto Linking source/target relationship is structured as follows:

Because Auto Linking reports, charts, and visualizations are manually tagged with the Auto Linking property values, you control the allowable drilldowns. This can prevent report users from drilling down too far and losing focus.

In the following image, the source report on the left shows all Product Categories. Since Auto Linking is enabled in the source, the Product Categories all appear as hyperlinks. The Auto Linking Target property has been set for 3 reports that all have filters for Product Category.

In the following example, the user clicked Camcorder and selected a drill-down report, shown on the right. The source passed the camcorder parameter to the predefined target report, which includes a WHERE filter for Product Category. The resulting drill-down report shows camcorder information only, down to the model level.

Once the target reports are tagged with the Auto Linking property values, they are eligible to be used as targets for other source reports in the domain that use the same parameter. They will automatically appear in the Auto Linking lists for those reports.

Procedure: How to Connect Reports, Charts, and Visualizations with Auto Linking

  1. Select a report, chart, or visualization that you wish to designate as a source. The source report must contain one or more columns that correspond with parameters that can be passed to the target reports. In the File/Folder Properties panel, change the Enable Auto Linking property to Yes.

    Close the source.

  2. Select a report, chart, or visualization that you wish to designate as a target. The target report must have one or more parameters that correspond with columns in the source report. In the File/Folder Properties panel, change the Enable Auto Linking property to Yes and change the Auto Link Target property to Yes.

    Close the target. Repeat this step for additional targets, as needed.

  3. Run the source report.

    Hyperlinks automatically appear for columns that support Auto Linking. Click a hyperlink and select a target report from the context menu. Note that the resulting report opens in a new tab on your browser.

Link to Ad Hoc Reports, Charts, and Visualizations Using Auto Drill

How to:

Use the Auto Drill feature to connect a source procedure to one or more ad hoc target reports, charts, or visualizations, within a dimension hierarchy. The links that enable these connections are created automatically by the Auto Drill feature, and the resulting target reports are created automatically, on the fly, when invoked.

The Auto Drill source/target relationship is structured as follows:

Because Auto Drill target reports, charts, and visualizations are generated automatically on the fly, you can drill down anywhere within a dimension hierarchy. This gives you an open-ended, high-capacity analytical capability.

In the following image, the Auto Drill source report on the left shows all Product Category and Product Subcategory fields as hyperlinks, since these two columns are in the same dimension hierarchy.

In the following example, the user clicked the Standard subcategory under the Camcorder category. From the resulting menu, the user selected Drill down to Model. An ad hoc report was generated, shown on the right. The source passed the camcorder and standard parameters to the target, which shows those parameters only, down to the model level.

Since Model, in the above example, is the bottom of the dimension hierarchy, we cannot drill down further. Clicking a hyperlink in the Model column results in two options: Restore Original or Drill up to Product Subcategory. You can also return to the original source by clicking the Home breadcrumb trail, at the top of the target report.

Ineligible Conditions

Auto Drill functionality is not supported under the following conditions:

Procedure: How to Connect Reports, Charts, and Visualizations with Auto Drill

  1. Select a report, chart, or visualization that you wish to designate as a source. The source must contain one or more sort columns that exist within a dimension hierarchy in the master data.
  2. On the Format tab, click the Auto Drill button.

    In the File/Folder Properties panel, the Enable Auto Drill property value is changed to Yes.

  3. Run the source report.

    Hyperlinks automatically appear for columns that support Auto Drill. Click a hyperlink to drill down. Note that the resulting ad hoc report overwrites the source report on your browser, but you can navigate back using the breadcrumb trail, at the top of the report.

    Note:

    Note: If you have created a chart that has multiple dimension sort fields in the request, some of which belong to the same dimension hierarchy, multiple links to the same target may result.