Set Up Drill-through Access in a Report

Set up drill-through access in a source report to link two reports containing related information.

You can then access related or more detailed information in one report (the target) by selecting one or more data item values from another report (the source). IBM® Cognos® passes values from the source to the target and uses the passed values to filter the target object. If the data in the source and target is conformed or if the data item names are the same, then the system may map the source values to filter the target (dynamic drill-through). If you require greater control, you may define parameters in the target object (parameterized drill-through).

For instructions about creating parameters in other kinds of targets, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide.

When you define the drill-through path in IBM Cognos Report Studio, you can pass a value from a different data item that is hidden from the user for display purposes but still in the query. For example, users see the Product Name data item and can drill through on that item, but the drill-through definition passes the Product Number value for the product name the user chose. You can also define the target parameter to accept multiple values or a range of values from the data item in the drill-through source report or to accept a value from a parameter in the source report.

Drill-through definitions that have been authored inside a Report Studio report appear in the source report as blue underlined links. Users click the hyperlink to select the value they want passed to the target and to drill through to the target report. If a user selects multiple items within a single column then when the drill-through target report is run, the values from each selected row are passed to the target parameters. This occurs as an and condition.

You can also drill through within the same report by creating bookmarks. As well, you can create drill-through definitions in the source package instead of the Report Studio report. Users can use package drill-through definitions to navigate to a target report from an IBM Cognos Analysis Studio analysis, an IBM Cognos Query Studio report, an IBM Cognos PowerPlay® Studio report or IBM Cognos PowerCube package, or a Report Studio report. For more information, see the Administration and Security Guide.

If you have the IBM Cognos Software Development Kit, you can use URLs to set up drill-through access to and from third-party sources.

You can also drill through from a map.