16.2 The Drill Buttons
When a visual has more than one level, hover over it to see the icons in the visual header. They are also on the Data/Drill tab of the ribbon (Report view, when the visual is selected) and in the right-click menu.
| Icon | Name (tooltip text) | What happens | Example on the Location hierarchy |
|---|---|---|---|
| ↑ | Drill up | Goes back one level | From Areas of Pune back to Cities |
| ↓ | Click to turn on Drill down (drill mode) | While on, clicking a bar drills into that item only | Click Pune → see Kothrud, Hinjewadi, Baner, Hadapsar, Wakad |
| ⇊ | Go to the next level in the hierarchy | Shows the next level for all items, and the parent level disappears | All areas of all cities (Kothrud, Dharampeth, CIDCO …) |
| ⤓ (fork) | Expand all down one level in the hierarchy | Shows the next level together with the parent level | "Pune Kothrud", "Pune Baner", "Nagpur Dharampeth" … |
Steps in Power BI – drill on a column chart of Orders by Location
- Insert a Clustered column chart. X-axis = Location hierarchy (State, City, Area, Store Name); Y-axis = Total Orders.
- The chart shows State (one bar: Maharashtra). Click ⇊ Go to the next level → six city bars.
- Click the ↓ icon so drill mode is on (the icon is highlighted). Click the Nagpur bar → Dharampeth and Sitabuldi appear.
- Click ↑ Drill up → back to cities.
- Click ⤓ Expand all down one level → the axis shows City + Area pairs. Turn on Format › Visual › X-axis › Concatenate labels (On/Off) to change how the two levels are labelled.
- Right-click any bar to use Drill down, Drill up, Show next level and Expand to next level without the header icons.
Drilling on dates
On the Date hierarchy: Go to next level from Year shows Quarters (Q1–Q4 summed across all years). Expand all down shows "2024 Qtr 1, 2024 Qtr 2 … 2025 Qtr 4", which keeps the years separate. For a timeline, expand is usually what you want.
Ravindra Bagale's Tip
Ek common chuk mhanje not turning on drill mode (the down-arrow button) and then clicking a bar, which cross-filters other visuals instead of drilling. Show users the drill icons in the visual header, or add a short note on the page. Ha niyam lakshat theva.