Visualize Drill Down in VDM

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Article Goal

Learn how to use Drill Down on different Visualize items such as Charts, Grids, and Cards to explore data at multiple levels of detail.

What Is Drill Down?

Drill Down is a feature in Visualize that lets users move from a high-level view of data into progressively more detailed layers. For example, you can start with a Client ID, then narrow to their Service Dates, then an account number.

Use Case: This feature is perfect for analyzing hierarchical datasets— for example such as employees, locations, and customer orders—without creating multiple dashboards.

Why Use Drill Down?

• Allows interactive exploration of data

• Reduces the need to design multiple dashboards for each data level

• Provides context by letting users drill up and down through related data fields

Note: Drill Down behavior depends on how arguments and values are structured in the dashboard item.

Where Is Drill Down Used?

Drill Down is enabled in the Visualize Designer, and can be applied to most Visualize items such as Charts, Grids, and Cards.

Steps to Use Drill Down

Step 1: Enter the Visualize Designer

Open VDM and click on Visualize Designer from the main screen.

Step 2: Create Dashboard Items

Build your desired dashboard items (Chart, Grid, Cards, etc.), making sure to assign values, arguments, and data sources.

Step 3: Open the Data Tab

Select an item, then go to the Data tab under the Tools section.
(Location of the Data tab may vary depending on the selected item.)

Step 4: Enable Drill Down

Check the box to enable the Drill Down setting.

Step 5: Add Additional Arguments

Add arguments for each level of detail you want to drill through.
Example order: Client → Service_Date (Year) → ACCOUNT_NUM

Step 6: Interact with the Drill Down

Click on a value in your dashboard to drill deeper into the data.

Example: Clicking Client 1000 shows their Service Dates by year.

Next level: Clicking 2013 shows each individual ACCOUNT_NUM for that year.

Step 7: Drill Up

Use the Drill Up arrow to move back up the levels of your dataset.

Article Summary

Drill Down in Visualize gives users the ability to interactively explore hierarchical datasets by clicking into progressively detailed data levels. It can be applied to Charts, Grids, and Cards, and is ideal for uncovering trends or anomalies hidden at deeper levels of detail. You can also Drill Up to step back through higher-level data, making the feature highly flexible for analysis.

Use Case: A sales manager can start with a list of employees, drill down into each employee’s region, then to specific customers, and finally to the individual orders—all in a single dashboard.