iPrism Report Sorting and Drilldown

The purpose of this article is to clarify how sorting and drilldown operate when viewing reports.

Briefly, sorting is done using the column headings shown below (navy blue bar). Sorting does not filter data, it re-orders data.

Note that drilldown is supported for manually run reports, not scheduled reports, and is done by right-clicking anywhere on a specific row to access more detail pertaining to the row. The detail displayed is the same regardless of what column you are on. In other words, it is not a "context-sensitive" drilldown.  For example, if you have sorted on "Blocked," then rows will be sorted by the number of blocks that occurred. Right-clicking on the blocked column and drilling down will show ALL detail (which can be sorted), but it will NOT show "just the blocks". So, using the screen shot below, drilling down by right-clicking on Passed, Blocked, Overridden, Initiated, Hits, Pages, Bandwidth, or Duration will produce exactly the same result, i.e., all detail for the row. In other words, the expectation of a context-sensitive drilldown is understandable, but the reporting drilldown does in fact work as intended, revealing all detail for the selected row (category in this case).  

Sorting Example

As an example, the pre-defined iPrism 4.x Web Statistics by Category report is shown below. This report sorts by Bandwidth usage (high to low) by default, as indicated by the yellow bandwidth column. Mouse rollover will cause the mouse pointer to change to a hand (in this case) as shown in the red circle below. Also the tool-tip Sort by Bandwidth displays. Note that sorting by different columns typically changes the display order of the categories, but in every case, you are viewing the same data.  It is simply being sorted in descending order on the chosen column (see 2nd screen shot below).

This is the same report as above, sorted on the Passed column (note how Passed is yellow). Note that category web host is now below web banners, instead of above web banners as when sorted by Bandwidth (see above).  

Drilldown Example

Drilldown is supported by using Mouse rollover on each and every line item. In other words, for each category it is possible to get a 2nd level of information. When you do Mouse rollover (and wait a moment) a tool-tip indicating drilldown ability is shown.

A left mouse-click (with or without the tooltip) brings up the menu below. The category selected is corporate marketing (shown in the menu below). Information can be broken out by User Name, IP Address, and Profile (for the category). The 2nd level report will show as a new "Tab" in the report viewer, allowing switching back and forth between higher and lower levels of report detail.

Note that you can go directly to 3rd level detail (specific URLs) using "corporate marketing" details shown in the menu above. When viewing a 2nd level report, you may use the same mouse rollover techniques to perform sorting and 3rd level drilldown.

To learn more about Reporting in iPrism, please use Help button in the Report Viewer.