Drilling Into and Out of the Data

Drilling helps you easily locate related information in a worksheet. For example, suppose you're analyzing data showing activity at a quarterly (3 months) level. To see the data at a higher level, such as yearly, you can drill out of that information. Similarly, if you want to analyze the data at a monthly level, you can drill into that level.

Drilling out of data consolidates the data for a broader overview.

Drilling into data shows more details about the data.

So, drill into data to analyze it at a finer level of detail, and drill out to get the larger picture.

Discoverer provides drill icons to quickly and easily drill up or down in a table or crosstab.You can use drill icons to drill through data in several ways.

Any data item that permits drilling has a drill icon on the worksheet. You can use the drill icon to drill up or down through the data structure. The drill icons are the small arrowheads next to the column headings.

Click to learn how
To drill into or out of data from the table or crosstab:
To collapse drilled data:

See also:
Pivoting Data
Sorting Data
Duplicating Tables and Crosstabs
Adding Calculations to Worksheets
Totaling Numeric Data
Calculating Percentages

To drill into or out of data from the table or crosstab:

1. Click the drill icon in the column or row with the data that you want to drill.

   A drop-down menu appears for the item. For example, if you click the drill icon for City, the drop-down menu shows that you can drill down to the Store Names within the city or up to the Region in which the city is located.

   
   

2. From the drop-down menu, choose the level of data to which you want to drill up or down.
   • To drill down, select one of the levels below the current level. In the example you would select Store Name.

   • To drill back up, select one of the levels above the current level. In the example you would select Region.

If you're drilling down, Discoverer finds the more detailed data specified by the drill and displays it on the worksheet.

If you're drilling up, Discoverer consolidates the data into a more concise worksheet.

Collapsing Drilled Items

If you select a data item to which you have already drilled down, you can collapse the levels back to their previous state.

To collapse drilled data:

1. Click the drill icon of the data item.

2. Select a value above the current value from the drop-down menu.

Note: Data on a worksheet is often organized in the hierarchical sequence. Typically, you would drill, for example, from Region to City and then from City to Store Name. However, in some instances, you might want to drill to data out of that sequence. That is, you might want drill into the data from Region directly to Store Name while skipping the drill to City. This can also be thought of as skipping a hierarchical level. To drill to another level out of sequence, simply select the level you want from the drop-down menu.