Drill Through from Power BI Table to Paginated Report

Inkey Solutions, April 22, 2025212 Views

What is Drill Through?

Drill-through is a feature in Power BI that allows users to navigate from one report page to another while passing context-specific filters. This is especially useful when users need detailed insights beyond summary data.

Overview

In this scenario, we have a Power BI report with two pages:

Summary Page: Contains a Power BI Table displaying state names along with the total number of customers.

Detailed Page: Contains an embedded Paginated Report with customer details.

The objective is to enable drill-through functionality such that when a user selects a state in the Power BI table on Summary Page, the Paginated Report on Detailed Page gets filtered based on that selection. Both the Power BI report and the Paginated Report should use the same dataset.

Steps to Implement Drill Through

Step 1: Create a Power BI Table on Summary Page

Ensure the dataset is properly linked.
Add a table visual in Power BI.
Include columns for State Name and the total number of customers.

Step 2: Embed a Paginated Report on Detailed Page

Add a Paginated Report visual to Page 2.

Step 3: Enable Drill Through on Detailed Page

Go to the Fields pane.
Add the State Name into parameter of Paginated report as well
Add State Name to the Drill-through filters section.
Ensure the ‘Keep all filters‘ option is selected.

Step 4: Apply the Parameter to the Paginated Report

Edit the Paginated Report.
Configure the Paginated Report parameters.
Disable the ‘Use Default‘ option.
Select the Power BI Field and click on ‘See Report‘.

Step 5: Test the Drill Through Functionality

Go to Summary Page and select a specific row in the table.
Right-click on particular row and choose Drill Through → Detailed Page.
Verify that the Paginated Report on Detailed Page is now filtered based on the selected state.

Conclusion

Drill-through functionality enhances report interactivity by allowing users to move from summary-level data to a detailed Paginated Report while maintaining contextual filters. This approach is particularly useful when dealing with large datasets that require detailed analysis. Additionally, Paginated Reports provide enhanced export functionality, allowing users to generate and download detailed reports in various formats such as PDF, Excel, and CSV for offline analysis or distribution.

By following these steps, you can effectively implement drill-through navigation in Power BI from a Table visual to a Paginated Report.

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