Drill to related in OBIEE

Question

Hi,
Is there a way to achieve something like Discoverer "Drill to related" in OBIEE 11?
Requirement standing behind is to let user drill from initial report structure through many different paths (customer specified 30 predefined drill paths, corresponding to different hierarchy levels of 7 dimensions).
Initial report Structure is 3 static columns of one hierarchy: L1, L2, L3. User starts drill from L3.
L3 -> Product Category -> Customer Type -> Sales Rep
L3 -> Product Category -> Sales Rep -> Customer Name
L3 -> Geographical region -> Sales Rep -> Customer Name
L3 -> Business Area -> Customer Type
I could use Action Links Navigate feature, but you can imagine amount of target reports standing behind.
Can you suggest any smart way to achieve such requirement?

Answer 1

Thank you PeakIndicators_Alastair for suggestions.
As you mentioned using multiple drill paths would be difficult as there are 30 drill paths specified and it would be quite impossible even for experienced user to do desired drill with ease.
In my case it will be also a bit complex to let users modify reports because:
- query filter is based on presentation variables set in dashboard prompt, so report won't return any data when opened outside dashboard -> user would need to modify report, then go back to dashboard and set his prompts again
- user education would be needed how to include/remove columns from report; how to edit pivot table component
- when we let users include unlimited number of columns and he decide to use many hierarchy columns in one table, following issue will occur: 11g presentation hierarchy - limit of levels?
At this point I am thinking about something like:
- include several (most used in different drills) presentation hierarchy columns into main report table (all starts at "Total" level by default)
- on measure columns use Action Links that will open additional reports to let user further drill (open from dashboard in new browser window)
- E.g. "Product Category" and "Customer Type" presentation hierarchies are included into main table -> user first expand hierarchy to desired level then use action link to see diced Sales Rep details in new browser window.
This solution is definitely not perfect, mainly because of drill order: once user would like to drill from "Product Category" -> "Customer Type", other time "Customer Type" -> "Product Category", then he need to switch main report column order (possible from dashboard view).
I was wondering if there is another solution or trick available in OBIEE that lets users flexibly drill through ...
Regards,
mudi
Edited by: mudi on 28-Feb-2012 09:24