Create a drill process

A drill process is a special type of TurboIntegrator process that is called from a drill rule to display underlying data associated with a view cell. A drill process is run when you initiate drill-through from an exploration view.

1. In edit mode, go to the database in the Data tree where you want to create a drill process, and expand the database to reveal the cubes.
2. Right-click the cube for which you want to create a drill process.
   This cube, from which a drill-through originates, is called the origination cube.
3. Click Drill, Create drill process.
4. Enter a name for the process, then click Create.
   Tip: For best practice, use a drill process name that identifies the origination cube for the drill process. For instance, if you create a process to drill from a cube that is named PriceCube to an ODBC source, you might name the drill process PriceCubeToODBCSource. This naming convention makes it easier to identify a drill process when you initiate drill-through from a cube view and must select from multiple drill processes that are associated with the cube.

   The drill process editor opens. This editor is nearly identical to the regular process editor, but has only two data source options: Cube and DB Connection. These data sources are the only ones that are supported for drill-through.

   Additionally, the drill process editor includes a cube selector, which is not part of the regular process editor. Drill processes are associated with a specific cube. If you pick a new cube from the cube selector, the process selector contains any drill processes associated with the selected cube.

   

   1

   Database selector.

   2

   Cube selector.

   3

   Drill process selector.

5. To define a drill process with a Cube source, complete these steps:
   1. Click Cube.
   2. Select the cube that contains the view that you want to open, then click Next.

      You can open any cube that resides on the same database as the current drill process.

   3. Select the view that you want to open with the drill process. If such a view does not exist, click Create view to define a new view.
   4. Click Load Preview.
   5. Click Validate.
      If validation fails, see Troubleshooting.
   6. Click Save.

      TM1 saves the drill process as a TurboIntegrator process, but prefixes the name you assigned in step 8 with the string }Drill_. For example, if you save a drill process with the name PriceCubeToODBCSource, TM1 saves the process as }Drill_PriceCubeToODBCSource. Drill processes appear under the Control Objects for your database on the Planning Analytics Workspace data tree.

6. To define a drill process with a DB Connection source, complete these steps:
   1. Click DB Connection.
   2. Select the connection that you want to use. Optionally, click Log in credentials and supply a username and password for the connection.
   3. Click Next.
   4. Enter an SQL query to extract data from the source. The syntax and format of the query varies depending on which type of database you are accessing. If the query references a table name that contains spaces, you must enclose the name in double quotation marks.
   5. Click Test and preview.

      The process editor displays the first 10 records from the data source.

      If the query doesn't return the results that you want, you can modify the query and click Test query to refine the results.

   6. Click Validate.
      If validation fails, see Troubleshooting.
   7. Click Save.

      TM1 saves the drill process as a TurboIntegrator process, but prefixes the name you assigned in step 8 with the string }Drill_. For example, if you save a drill process with the name PriceCubeToODBCSource, TM1 saves the process as }Drill_PriceCubeToODBCSource. Drill processes appear under the Control Objects for your database on the Planning Analytics Workspace data tree.

Troubleshooting:

If any of the variables in your process have the same name as any of the parameters for the process, process validation fails with an Invalid Variable error.

A drill process creates variables and parameters for each dimension in the origination cube.

Variable names, which are created based on the content of your data source, appear in each column on the Data Source tab. In the following image, sandboxes, scenario, location, model, date, and value are all variables.

Parameter names appear in the Name column on the Parameters tab.

Parameter names are derived from the dimension names in the origination cube.

If validation fails due to identical naming, review the variable names and parameter names for your process. Modify any variable names that are identical to parameter names, then click Validate again.