One of the features of EPM that I had not explored too much was drill-through. It sounded like a really cool feature that would be useful for a lot of users. Query data in EPM and then drill-through to the source to analyze the details behind the entry. I had tried to find information on how to implement a few times over the years, but it wasn’t a pressing concern as I did not have clients interested in it. That changed recently, my client was interested, so it was time to figure out how to enable drill-through.
Sadly, I found available documentation a bit lacking. Maybe I was not looking in the right places, but what I found was vague and challenging to follow. Luckily, I was able to tap into a co-worker’s brain a bit and between the two of us we got it working. Maybe luckier was that while the documentation was challenging, actually setting it up turned out to be relatively easy. I can’t say for sure whether the steps about to be outlined will work in all situations, but this worked for the specific needs of this particular client. Please keep that in mind as you read through, and if you have suggestions, please add them to the comments.
First thing to do is open Data Management and go to the Target application where the data will be loaded. If you do not have a Target application and load process set up yet, that will need to be done first.
In the Application Details for the Target Application, go to the tab Dimension Details and check the dimensions to use for the drill region. We chose Account, Company, and Department.
Next, go to the tab Application Options. We knew Drill Region needed to be Yes, but we were not sure about Enable Drill from Summary, so we left that as No.
Next, we went to Import Format. Some of the documentation we read indicated that the Drill URL could be entered here. However, we were not going to drill all the way back to the source application, so a Drill URL did not seem relevant. We left it blank.
It was time to test. We didn’t expect it to work, but it did! We set up a simple form to view lowest level data, and the fish hook signifying drill-through was available.
Right clicking on the cell brings up the Actions menu, select Drill-Through. This menu can also be accessed from the Actions button in the upper right of the form.
A small pop up will appear, click on the hyperlink Drill Through to Source.
A new browser window will open with the details.
Some additional functions are available from the Gear icon on each line. Drill-through is available in Smart View as well and functions similarly.
While this example was very basic, it provides an overview of drill-through. As I understand it, depending on the source application, drill-through can go all the way into the source application for viewing transactional details. This example only went into the Workbench within Data Management to view the details of the load file.
As always, happy EPM’ng!
Update 5.10.2021: https://randomepmnotes.com/2021/05/10/drill-through-revised/
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