The Difference between Drill-Down Reports and Drill-Through Reports

In this blog, I will explain the difference between drill-down reports and drill-through reports. Also, I will explain their features and use cases.

Drill-Down Report: Meaning

Viewing consolidated data in more detail is known as drilling down. A report that allows the user to navigate a hierarchical relationship between data is known as a drill-down report. For example, when a user clicks on a visualization, this report allows the user to view a granular level of data so that they can identify how the data was generated.

Example: Region > Country > State > Location

In the following screenshot, clothing sales by year are built upon granular data such as bib-shorts, caps, etc.

Drill-Down Report: Drilling Clothing

Drill-Through Report: Meaning

Viewing a different layer of data by clicking a visualization element is known as drilling through. Drilling through allows a user to understand another aspect of data that is related to the current data. It doesn’t show a granular view of the current data; instead, it shows a new way to analyze the current data.

In the following, clicking Sales Order Number drills through to a different perspective of the sales—the invoice.

Drill-Through Report

In the following table, you can find the differences between drill-down and drill-through reports.

Drill-Down Reports	Drill-Through Reports
Allows visualizing granular-level data.	Allows for analyzing relevant data instead of a granular view.
Filter parameters are not applicable for drill-down reports.	Can add parameters in the drill-through report to filter data based on a selection.
Drilling down can be achieved in a single view (i.e., you can drill down from the top level to the bottom level of the data in the same visualization).	Drilling through uses a selected data item, may use filters, and applies them to a page you are drilling through.

Drilling Down in Bold Reports

Bold Reports allows you to create reports with a drill-down feature. Drilling down is an interactive feature that can be configured on the same report, or it can open a different report using hyperlinks. Using the drill-down feature, you can show a complex report at the top level, and drilling down can show micro-level data so that users can identify the root cause of visualization findings. For more information about drill-down reports in Bold Reports, read the following blog: https://www.boldreports.com/blog/how-to-create-a-drill-down-report-using-report-designer.

Drilling Through in Bold Reports

Bold Reports also supports a drill-through feature. In drill-through reports, you can pass parameters to filter data. Using the Bold Report designer, you can configure drill-through actions for text boxes, cells of a table or matrix, images, and charts using the Link property listed in the report item properties. A drill-through action can be configured in the main report as a report action or a URL action. The report action allows the user to navigate from one report to another. For more information about drill-through reports in Bold Reports, read the following blog: https://www.boldreports.com/blog/step-by-step-procedure-to-create-a-ssrs-drillthrough-report.

Conclusion

I hope this blog provided a clear idea of the differences between drill-down and drill-through reports in Bold Reports. To explore further, go through our sample reports and Bold Reports documentation.

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