With drill-through reports, you create spreadsheet reports that display data retrieved directly from external relational data sources.
When you create an Essbase database, you do not use all of the data of the associated external data source. Instead, you choose and summarize the data that spreadsheet users most likely need. For example, you might summarize the amount of root beer sold in each state. The summaries enable spreadsheet users to compare sales across states and regions. They can answer questions such as “Which state sold the most root beer in January?” and “Which state sold the most root beer in July?”
Some spreadsheet users may need more detailed information than the summaries can provide to create a strategy to increase root beer sales. They need to answer the following types of questions:
What are the 10 lowest performing stores in California?
What are the addresses of the stores?
What are the names of the store managers?
Such detailed information is not usually stored in an Essbase database, but in an external data source.
To view the relevant detail data, spreadsheet users drill through to the external data source and view a report containing the data in the context of the data in the Essbase database. This report is a drill-through report.
Until release 11.1.1, you created drill-through reports using Integration Services. Starting with release 11.1.1, you can also create drill-through reports in Essbase Studio. Essbase Studio expands and enhances the scope and capabilities of drill-through reports.
A drill-through report can be based on any intersection context or level (member combination) defined in the selected data source. In Smart View, visual clues, such as font color or size, alert the user that a drill-through report is available on one or more cells in the spreadsheet. In Spreadsheet Add-in, cubes built using Essbase Studio cannot provide those visual clues for drill-through cells so any cell is a potential drill-through cell. To learn how to access a drill-through report in Spreadsheet Add-in while connected to a cube built by Essbase Studio see Guidelines for Accessing Drill-through Reports in Spreadsheet Add-in.
In Smart View, users access drill-through reports by selecting Ad Hoc Analysis, then Drill-Through Reports from the Hyperion menu; in Spreadsheet Add-in, users double-click intersections to access the Linked Object Browser to start the drill-through process.
Note: | In Spreadsheet Add-in, to access drill-through reports from cubes built through Essbase Studio, users must be registered with Shared Services and be provisioned with, at a minimum, the Essbase Read role and the Essbase Studio cpViewer role. |
Note: | When logging in to Essbase in Spreadsheet Add-in, login names and password are case-sensitive for users who are provisioned through Shared Services. |
Spreadsheet users view reports from predefined drill-through targets that retrieve the relevant detail from the data source. Drill-through report targets created in Essbase Studio include:
Relational databases
URLs, including Oracle Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management, Fusion Edition and Oracle BI EE URLs
Customized Java methods
Drill-through report targets created in Integration Services include relational databases and URLs.
This chapter contains information on creating and maintaining drill-through reports in Essbase Studio. For more information about:
Creating and maintaining drill-through reports in Integration Services, see the Oracle Essbase Integration Services Online Help.
Using drill-through reports with Smart View, see the Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office User's Guide and Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office User's Guide Help.
Using drill-through reports with Spreadsheet Add-in, see the Oracle Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in User's Guide.