Modifying the Drill Down Path

Modifying the drill down path in a report provides a quick way to focus in on a specific area of your business or take a narrowly defined report and broaden its scope.

If you are coming from a version of MITS Discover older than version 11, you'll find new options that were not previously available in the drill down functions.  The newest feature is the breadcrumb.  Shown here, the breadcrumb sits at the top of the report and shows the current drill down path, along with information about select exploration and filtering.

Some features, such as select exploration, have moved away from the grid drill down and into the breadcrumb.

Select Exploration

When adding a drill down path, the default in MITS Discover is to show all of the available values for that path.  But there are times when you'll want to limit the drill down path to just some of those values.  Conversely, you may have a report for a specific value that you want to expand to create a wider view.

To select different values (to either add or remove) click on the value indicator, marked with the green arrow in the screenshot below.  In the example above, Sales Rep is limited to Robert Anderson, but Bill To Customer is showing All.  By clicking on Robert's name or by clicking All, you'll be presented with a menu where you can choose to Select or Remove values.  Clicking Select Values opens a new tool where you can change the drill down values at this level of the drill down path.  Remove Selections will clear any selections and return the drill down path to showing all values at that level.

Selecting Values

The tool shown below is displayed when Select Values is chosen from the drill down path in the breadcrumb.

The search bar at the top allows you to refine the list of Available selections.  The options "Case Sensitive" and "Contains\Beginning With" can provide further refinement to your searches.

A list of Available selections based on the search criteria is displayed below.  By default, it shows all the values for that identifier.  The search box can refine the list.   Mark the checkbox next to each item you want to include in your select exploration and it will appear in the Selected box.

Selections in the Selected box can be removed by clicking the circled X to the far right of the selection.  All selections can be removed at once with the Remove all button.

If you wish to display everything except for the items in the Selected box, click the Show button at the bottom.  This will change the button to say Exclude and when you return to the report, all items for that drill down path except for the items in the Selected box will be displayed.

The Selection Tool button toggles to a Manual ID Entry when clicked.  This changes the Selected box to a text entry box where you can type or paste in a list of ID values.  This is useful if you have a long list of values you want to explore but don't want to select each one from the Available list.  Customers often use this option when they have a ready list of identifiers to paste in the box.

Clicking Apply will return you to the report with the new selections enforced.

Using the Remove Selections from the menu will clear any select exploration on that level of the drill down path, showing all available items.  It does so without impacting any other levels of the drill down path.

Changing and Inserting Identifiers

The breadcrumb allows the drill down path to be changed, often without losing other parts of the drill down path.  In versions prior to MITS Discover 11, changing the drill down path in the above example from Sales Rep to Location would mean that Bill To Customer would be removed from the path and would have to be added again.

Now there are several options for changing or even inserting additional drill down paths without having to start over.

In this example, if we click on the arrow next to Sales Rep, a new menu appears.

The top section shows all of the possible identifiers that can replace Sales Rep in the drill down path.  For all of those identifiers where the rest of the path is possible, it will also be shown.  In this case, Bill To Customer is still available after all of the other identifiers except Ship To Customer.  If any of the other identifiers are selected than Ship to Customer, Bill To Customer will remain in the drill down path.

The next section works in a similar manner.  It shows all of the possible identifiers that can be inserted above the current path while maintaining the current path.

The third section simply includes the ability to remove the identifier all together from the drill down path.

The bottom section (when displayed) have options to toggle on and off Line Breaks and Totals at that level of the