Would you like to create a metric summary table with the ability to open a drill-down to, for example, store or product level for those metrics? Or drill al the way down to receipt or receipt row level from a simple sales per store table? Or maybe you want to see the day to day trend as a line chart from a metric tile instead of the normal bar chart drill down. This article explains how to create, use and edit these linked report.
Creating a linked report
You can create a linked report either while creating a new report or a dashboard, or while editing an existing report:
Currently, the only report type from which a linked report cannot be created is the Metric trend chart. All other chart types are supported. You can link any or all of the available linkable dimensions. The drilldowns can lead to similar, or totally different types of reports. Let's create a simple linked report of a metric tile with a heatmap. In the report creation/editing mode scroll down below the filter dropdowns to see the linkable dimensions:
In dashboard creation/editing mode you'll see the linkable dimensions adjacent to each component. The amount of dimensions depends on the report type and the amount of groupings and metrics you have on that report.
In this case, we are adding the liked report to a metric tile dashboard component. First we click on the link icon below the component, and then "Add". In the pop-up that appears we can either select from a list of existing reports, or we can create a new report as the drill-down report. If an existing report is selected, the report can be edited at this stage (eg change the metric, or report type or grouping), and you can save that edited version as a copy, or you can save the edits on top of the original report.
The list of existing reports depends on the visibility settings of the main report/dashboard. If you are adding a linked report to a user report (visible only to you), you can add any user or company report as a linked report. But if the main report is a company report, only company reports will appear on the list of available exiting reports.
If you create a new report, you will have to name your report, in order to save it. Then you can select the report type, metric, groupings, timeline and filters just like you would on a normal report. In case you add a linked report to a company report/dashboard, you will not be able to make it a user report - the visibility can only be "company".
After the report selections are complete, we can add another level of drilldown-> In this heatmap, we have the day part level grouping on Y-axis, and we could, for example, enable further drilldown to sales person.
To create another level of linked report, we once again need to scroll down below the filter dropdowns, and select which dimension we want to link to:
Or if we do not want to create further linked reports, then we can just save our report from the bottom right corner. When you save the linbked report, it will also appear as a new report on your company reports list, or "My analytics" depending on the chosen visibility settings.
Once you have selected or created and saved your linked report, you will be able to select which attributes are passed from the main report to the linked report. For example, if you have "Sales Area" filter on your main report or dashboard, you can deselect that filter on at this stage, so that the drill down will display all data, not only the filtered data. This is useful, for example, if you want drill down to all store's stock values even though your dashboard only displays one store.
Once we are happy with these selections, we can save the linked report, and then we need to also save the main report.
Using linked reports
When a linked report has been saved they appear in the portal like normal report, but in cases where there are linked groupings, the grouping labels will appear blue instead of black, and in cases of linked metrics in table-type reports (Metric-summary, table and crosstab), the metric values will be blue:
On report types where there's an existing drilldown AND visible grouping labels (mainly bar charts and stacked bar charts), the "normal" drilling function is still available through clicking at the bar, and the linked report can be accessed by clicking the date label:
Editing a Linked report
You can edit a linked report from two places: Either you navigate to it from the main report editing mode->from the pencil icon next to the linked report name.
Or you can find the linked report from the "Company analytics" or "My analytics" list, and go there to edit that report. Any edits you do will naturally affect what your linked report shows when you drill down to it from the main report.
At a later release, there will be a link icon to distinguis the linked reports from normal reports, so you'll know to be careful when modifying the linked report.
FInd video instructions and some example linked reports from this how-to-Zoined video:
Do not hesitate to send us feedback on this features or how-to questions to support@zoined.com