Data drilling

When drill down (or drill down ) in general, the navigation is referred to in hierarchical data.

In Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and information retrieval Drill Down is a process in which the various properties of existing information objects are used to refine the analysis or finding them gradually. The properties are called the OLAP dimensions. In information retrieval, however, is referred to as facets. Drill down allows "zooming " in which the existing data can be viewed in different levels of detail. The opposite view direction, a step by step " Zoom Out " is referred to as roll-up or drill-up.

Examples

• A company's sales are stored in a data warehouse with information about time, product division and branch and can be summarized and evaluated according to each of these dimensions.
• A digital product catalog of an online shop contains records for various digital cameras with information on price range, resolution and manufacturers. When you select a manufacturer from the set of records is restricted to this. The remaining records can be searched by price range and resolution. Also can be further narrowed by further selecting a group from the set of records.

Dimensions and classifications

The different dimensions may themselves be further divided hierarchically. For example, the branches can be summarized in the corporate example by continent and country. In data warehousing such a subdivision classification hierarchy is called. In information retrieval, a faceted classification is divided into different classifications for each facet.