Drill to data source

  • 21 December 2021
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The Drill to data Source functionality is used to identify where the original source data from a calculated cell.  This feature shows where the source data is located in either Metrics, Transactions, or Dimension list. 

 

Table of Contents

 

Using Drill to data source

 

To use Drill to data source, right-click on the cell you want to learn more about the source data. In the menu, select the Drill to data source option.

The Block type available will be dependent on where the source data is located.  For example, if a calculated cells data is only from a Transactions lists, then Dimensions and Metrics will not be able to be open. The feature will analyze the Metric Dependency Diagram and List the different Transaction Lists, Metrics, or Dimensiosn list which might contribute to the cell you selected.

 

 

Transactions and Dimensions lists 

 

When selecting Drill to data source on an cell that contains source data from a Transactions or Dimension list, page selectors are used to showcase which data contributed to the result.  

 

For example,  let's say you have a cell from a Metric that used the BY modifier to calculate totals for units sold by Country. If you used Drill to Drill to data sourceource on the cell for US units sold and choose the Transaction list option, your result would should you all the items in that Transaction list that were used to calculate the US total sold.  If you looked at the page selector in the resulting transaction list, it would be the US page selector.   If the formula used other arguments in the BY modifier, such as Month or Product, those dimensions would also be listed as Page selectors and aligned to the cell that was selected.  So if the cell selected was in December, the page selector would also say December to show transactions from that month. 

 

 

 

Metrics

 

When selecting a Metric as the block type to drill to, you are given a similar experience as with Lists.  The Metric will be shown with page selectors narrowing down the data to the cells that directly contributed to the calculated cells.

 

When selecting a Metric, the Metrics shown will always be the original source of data it will not show any Metrics that reference the original source.  

 

Limitations

 

Inaccurate Drill to data source: 

Drill to data source was initially designed for use cases where your Metric data is an aggregation (sum) of a single Property of a Transaction List. Some complex formulas are not supported correctly by this feature.

In such cases, the Block selection modal will alert you that the filtering might not be accurate.

 

 

This alert might be either because an unsupported function is used or because you are using filters/Dimensions modifiers which cannot be expressed as Page selector in the Block view. 

 

Currently unsupported functions : 

  • previous
  • networkdays
  • prorata
  • cumulate
  • decumulate
  • rank
  • spread
  • daysinperiod

 

Unsupported filter/Dimension modifiers:

  • Filters on Metric values
  • Select which does Offset

 

 

Incomplete List of Dependencies:

 

You might see this error message if you are using the Drill to Data source feature on the big model. “List of data sources might be incomplete because the current Metric has too many dependencies.”

 

For technical reason, Drill to data source won't go too "deep" in the model and also stop after browsing too many blocks for performance reasons. Current limits are set to a depth of 10 blocks, and 256 blocks in total. 


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