To create a Drill-Through protocol, open the Data Reader window, go to the Query tab then click on an empty line in the Drill-Through column. The protocol definition window opens.
Type the protocol name in the Title field.
Click the Fields button and select the entities (the code part) that correspond to fields from the external table on which you want to drill to. The entities chosen determine the possible starting points from which users can Drill-Through. For example, a protocol which has Product and Customer entities allows users to drill from a chosen Customer or a Customer-Product couple, through to the relational table.
Click the ODBC source drop-down list and select the ODBC source name that links you to the desired relational database. Note that the ODBC source name (DSN) must be defined on the computer where BoardServer is running.
After selecting the ODBC source name, the available tables and views are listed in the table, underneath the ODBC source list. Select the table (or tables) you want to link to then click the OK button as illustrated.
After clicking OK, the table fields list appears. Click on a table field corresponding to one of the selected entity codes, then, keeping the mouse button pressed, drag and drop the cursor in the cell adjacent to the entity, as illustrated.
Define the Join condition if required (refer to the paragraph Creating an ODBC Data Reader protocol).
Edit the SQL statement to add other fields to the Drill-Through protocol: click the Edit button, then click the Copy button and add other table fields after the existing fields needed to link to entities. Press OK to close this window
Press the OK button to save the protocol.
A Drill-Through protocol only allows you to drill a report from an entity which is included in the protocol. To be able to drill from a more aggregate entity you must define an E/R protocol that links the parent entity to the child entity present in the Drill-Through protocol. For example, to be able to drill-through to the invoices table by City, starting from an aggregate report, you must define an E/R protocol with City and Customer entities (we are assuming that the invoices table contains a Customer field and doesn’t include a City field).
The E/R protocols must be defined in the E/R column; to configure a protocol follow the same procedure described for Drill-Through protocols. Note that drilling-through from an aggregate entity may return a large number of transactions, therefore it is not advisable to allow drilling-through from highly aggregated entities.