How to break a chart down by category with drill-down

Drill-down lets readers click a point on the chart to see where the number comes from. On a revenue-by-month chart, a click on March shows March revenue by business unit.

Before you start

Drill-down opens the values by the measure’s Grouping Field. Check that the measure used in the series has this field filled in, for example Business unit (see Measures). Series whose measures have no grouping field stay the same with drill-down on.

When to use it

• To answer “where did this peak come from?” without building one chart per business unit.
• To see the trend of each category side by side (drill-down as series).
• To swap the dates on the axis for the categories, such as revenue by business unit (categories as axis).

Turn on drill-down

The same click works on the dashboard, in Hubviz Studio and in Hubviz Web. See how readers use it in Drill down in Hubviz Web.

Three ways to use the categories

Option	What it shows	Example
Enable Drilldown	The chart stays by month. A click on a month opens that month by category.	Revenue by month; click March to see March by business unit.
Show Drilldown as Series	Each category becomes a series, with no click needed. Only available with drill-down on.	One column per business unit in each month.
Use categories as axis	The categories go on the axis instead of the dates. Each bar shows the value of the last period.	One bar per business unit with December revenue.

To make each bar add up the whole period, such as the revenue for the year, turn on Calculate accumulated series value in each series.

With Enable Drilldown on, Use categories as axis has no effect. Use one or the other.

Pie and donut

On pie and donut charts, drill-down changes the slices: instead of one slice per series, you get one slice per category of the series. That is how you build “revenue by business unit” with a single series. The slice uses the value of the last period; turn on Calculate accumulated series value in the series to add up the whole period.

Limit and sort the drill-down items

Under Limit and Sorting:

Option	What it does
Maximum number of items	Shows only the first items, such as the 5 salespeople who sold the most.
Item sorting	Sets which items make it in and in what order. With drill-down on, Labels A to Z and Labels Z to A sort the opened items by name.
Apply configuration to drilldown items	Also applies the limit to the items opened by drill-down. Only available with a maximum number filled in.

Example: where March revenue came from

In the sample project, the Revenue measure of the Sales cube has Business unit as its Grouping Field. In the Revenue vs. target chart:

1. Turn on Enable Drilldown.
2. Click the March 2026 column.
3. The chart shows Industry at about R$ 1.8 million, Retail at about R$ 1.35 million and Services at about R$ 870 thousand.

Now you know that Industry drives the month’s revenue. The Target measure also has Business unit as its grouping field, so the target opens the same way.

Watch out

• No grouping field, nothing to open. Fill in the field on the measure, not on the chart.
• Many categories. With Show Drilldown as Series, each category becomes a series. Above 100 series, the chart shows only 100. Use Maximum number of items to keep the main ones.
• Comparison with the previous year does not work with Use categories as axis, because the axis no longer has dates. See Comparison and fixed values.
• A card with drill-down as series shows one card per category, with the category name.