let me show you how you can use power bi
drill through in three easy steps
so that your users can be looking at a
power bi report page and can drill
through to another page to see more
details we'll also be sharing five key
drilled through usage tips with you so
that you look as sharp as a drill
sergeant when using power bi drill
through hey I'm avi Singh Microsoft MVP
and best-selling power bi author and if
you want to become a power bi pro make
sure to click subscribe and hit that
Bell so you are notified whenever I go
live to answer your power bi questions
so let's set up our bar be our drill
through in three easy steps
and step one is to create that drill
through page let's see how it is done so
in this case I have set up a drill
through page for country so country is
the field that I've chosen what I've
decided to show more detail about the
selected country so of course this is
going to depend on your model your
report and you're gonna have to decide
that hey which field do you want to see
do you want to create a drill through
page four and of course after that the
next step would be to decide what
measures what visuals you show there now
of course in here I'm using a classic
pattern which I call the power pattern
I'm showing some high-level numbers at
the top I'm showing some trends I'm
showing some breakdown so again once a
user selects a country they're gonna
they're gonna have a very good
high-level picture of that and of course
we have a map on the side as well and
you can see there's a there's some
toggle built in so they can toggle and
see this in table form or they can just
look at a map so that is or a step one
to create the drill through page now
let's move on to step two which is to
add the drill true field now this is so
easy to miss and hard to find if you
don't know where to look so once you're
drilled through page is set up what I
want you to focus on is to focus on the
visualization let's try that again on
the visualization tab over here and and
down at the bottom of this this is what
you should see you should see this ain't
add drilled through fields here and
that's our cue so for here again we want
the drill through to be activate
by the country field so I'm gonna go to
or feel this and and grab the country
field and just drag and drop it over
here so that's it that was step two and
step three it's drill baby drill that's
it that's all it takes so now that we
have added that country field on to that
drill through you know fields over here
now this page has been enabled as a
drill through field anywhere where that
country field appears so now if we go
back to our main page and off you see
the country appears in this table over
here and it also appears in sorry in
this chart over here and then it's
stable over here but just by adding that
field into that drill through now it is
enabled
so let's take a look so all you have to
do is right click and when you go over
to drill true you have that option
available which wasn't there earlier and
there we go and you can see we have the
United Kingdom data shown showing here
and of course all the interactivity is
there I can switch to a table I can
switch back to a map I can of course
click around here and all the good stuff
right so and of course when I'm done
examining this data then I can simply
click on the back button to go back and
as I said anywhere that the country
field is used if the drill down is going
to be available so in this stable as
well notice a country field is and use
so here I can right click on France and
say drill through and I want to see that
country's detail and taken to that page
and now I'm seeing France and again it's
fully interactive and when I'm done
examining all I have to do is click back
and I'm back at the page where I started
so that was as easy as 1-2-3 now let's
look at our five usage tips and our
drill stars in his back so number five
give the page a good name and this is
important because the name of the page
so again what I'm talking about is is is
this thing here so country detail so I
made sure I gave it a good name didn't
call it page one or something like that
because that is the name that's gonna
show up in this drill through menu it's
gonna be the exact name so you want it
to be something meaningful for the user
number four
or to change the back button now you
know let's go back to our page here
and what I'm going to do is I only had a
back button which is actually an image
and I'm gonna delete that and I'm gonna
remove the drill down on a country field
from here oops
alright so that is gone and now I'm
gonna turn it back again to a drill
switch watch what happens here so I'm
again I'm gonna grab that country field
and put that in here now you by default
what power bi does is if you noticed
that it added a back button of its own
and this is nothing special this you can
you could have added yourself by going
to the buttons and click the back button
but probably that does this
automatically for you if a back button
doesn't exist now this button isn't bad
you can use that and and it's definitely
gonna work right so you click it and it
takes you back to the report and
everything is functional but sometimes I
just like to use a different button
maybe something a little more explicit
now of course what I did for that is I
just clicked on an image and grabbed an
image from there by the way you can
download this image if you like it and
of course a copy of this file to examine
it in more detail at the link shown here
learn Barbie on Comm slash download so
once you have that image what you would
need to do is you would need to go to
the action setting over here and turn it
on and set that as a back button and
this would work now as the default back
button the power be on at it so again I
can click this and go back and you know
go through come in and click it to go
back so again I mean it's it's your
choice but I like to use a more explicit
button which tells the user that hey you
can click this to go back number three
is that know that you can change the
size the page size off the drilled
through page now of course you wouldn't
do this in every case but I'll show you
one example of a drill through page and
we also have this country demographic
detail and you notice that what I've
done here I've changed the size of this
page and that's pretty easy to do you
can just go in here and choose a
different page size kind of customs
I really did use a bit of this page and
let's turn this page into a drill
through page as well so I'm going to add
country over here and now this is
another drill through page so now if
somebody goes back and clicks on Germany
and drill true and now you notice that
both of those pages are available but
but you know what I like about changing
the page size is that it's it's a very
clear reminder to them that this page is
different you know just visually they
can see that oh there's something
different about a space because the size
is different and so you know I don't
know it helps I think it helps them a
little bit and Santa hey now now I need
to go back and click on the back button
let's go on to number two number two
yeah and this I almost always use for my
drill through pages which is I use a
dynamic label at the top to show the
selection now obviously you may expect
that the user is gonna remember what
they click but you know sometimes you
never know I mean they might they might
thought that they would have they were
right-click on United Kingdom but maybe
they by mistake they right-click on
Germany or something like that or
anything like that and if you notice in
my drill tool report there is us a you
know a car display here which is showing
their current selection and you can
easily you easily set that up using a
simple measure and again I would let you
download the file and examine that in
more detail but I've seen that showing
the selection kind of makes things run a
lot smoother when users are navigating
between the main report and the drill
through we're at number one and my
number one tip here is to hide the
drilled through page and you might have
noticed in here that you know if you
notice this this has this icon which
shows that means that it's hidden and
that's pretty simple to do all you have
to do is right-click on the page and
select this box now the funny thing is
if you're working in power bi desktop
then this would not make any sense
because the page isn't hidden at all
you're like dude you know I can see you
right you're not invisible but really
this comes into effect when you publish
this report online let's take a look so
here we have the same report published
online to the power bi service too
RBI comm and you can see here that we do
not have those pages showing up they
can't you can't see them at all which is
really nice because you know it kind of
keeps it uncluttered it keeps it really
clean and you know that those spaces are
accessible to anybody just a right-click
away so when they do drill true then
they see that page and they can navigate
back and then maybe do a different go
through and go to that and those pages
kind of almost magically show up even
though they're nowhere here and I think
that makes the navigation really cool
make sure to click in the corner and
check out our additional drill through
videos these would be coming soon so
we'll add it in the corner so the next
topic we want to focus on is we just
showed you kind of one way to drill
through they're actually quite a few
different ways you can use drill through
so we're gonna cover that and drill
through isn't always the best strategy
in fact I often use different approaches
and we would like to cover that with you
and talk about the pros and cons if
you're just starting with power bi or
you keep getting stuck then make sure to
check out our complete step-by-step
power bi tutorial and again that's in
the corner as well and make sure to
subscribe and join me for my live talk
bar bi show each Friday until next time
bar my friend hey keep watching more
videos and keep learning power bi but if
you did enjoy this video I would love to
hear from you so leave a comment like
subscribe all the good stuff while we're
on my friends
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