Explore's drillthrough functionality gives you a more in-depth view of your data by providing you with a table of attributes and metrics that relate to the data selected in the query. Drillthrough first filters data based on the values you select and then slices it by each attribute you chose.
In this article, you'll learn about some best practices for using drillthrough. To find out more about other available query interactions, see Interacting with queries.
This article contains the following sections:
Select only the attributes you need
All attributes in the dataset are selected in drillthrough by default which might result in a table that is too big to be usable. To produce a more manageable table, deselect all drillthrough attributes in Chart configuration > Drillthrough and select only the elements you want to include.
Apply filters at the query level
Currently, drillthrough doesn't take into consideration any metric level filters. To ensure that the drillthrough results are filtered correctly all necessary filters must be placed in the query itself.
For example, if drillthrough is applied on the Solved tickets metric (which is filtered to return only solved tickets at the metric level) the results it will generate will actually be based on all tickets in any possible status. To avoid this, the Ticket status filter needs to be added to the query:
Query all needed data tables
Each dataset consists of multiple tables that are queried depending on the field selected in the query builder. Drillthrough can display only attributes or metrics that are part of the already queried data tables. So, if only the Tickets table was queried, attributes like Assignee Name and Requester Organization name are not shown in the drillthrough table, because they are located in the Assignee and Requester organization tables respectively.
To query all necessary tables add one of the attributes located in the data table to the query filters and select some or all values. For example, to query the Assignee table use the Assignee role attribute and to query the Requester organization table use the Requester organization status.
If an attribute is added as a filter to ensure the required tables are queried, but nothing for that filter is selected, select to exclude NULL values.
44 Comments
hi guys,
I'd like to be able to select other metrics not present in the drillthrough list, for example on my query I have First Reply Time and Full Resolution time in hours, but with the drillthrough I can only display it in minutes:
@Quentin, as it is mentioned in the article, not all metrics can be added to the drillthrough at the moment. Unfortunately, there is no way around this limitation. We will be working on enhancing this functionality in future. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Hi Zendesk, might be a very basic question but when you use drillthrough how do you then drill back up to the original view?
The main thing I want to do with the drillthrough function is to get to the actual ticket. When I filter this down to just the Ticket ID though, it is neither clickable or copyable like with Insight. Is there something I am missing or do I just need to hand type the Ticket ID into the support search bar?
@Joan, when you click on OK button the pop-up drillthrough window will be closed.

@Steven, at the moment clickable ticket IDs are not supported in the drillthrough. Our product team is aware of this need and will be working on this functionality later. This article explains how to set clickable IDs in the query itself: Configuring clickable links to tickets.
@Eugene, this doesn't appear to resolve the issue. The comments in the article you linked to show people requesting clickable links on the drillthrough function. It seems the only option here is to hand type in the tickets displayed into the Zendesk Support search field, since you can't even highlight the numbers in the drillthrough table.
For anyone else with the same issue, please upvote this feature request: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360029583513-Feature-Request-Add-calculated-attributes-to-Drill-Through-
@Steven, you are right, the clickable links workaround doesn't work on the drillthrogh level. It only can be used on the query level.
Full confession - I'm a newbie to Explore.
When I use Drillthrough, it is showing me double of each ticket that is in a particular group. Any idea why and how I can fix it?
Hi Katie,
We might need to have a look at your query to figure this one out! Look out in your inbox for a ticket from me.
Hi,
I'm trying to find out the Ticket ID's for the 6,182 (74%) tickets in the blue section of this chart. When I'm using the 'Drillthrough' tool with 'Ticked ID' the only option selected from the drop-down, it fails to pull through any information in the downloaded Excel spreadsheet.
Please can you advise where am I going wrong with this? I am new to Explore.
Many thanks,
Daniel
Hey there Daniel,
This is a very good question! I'm going to have to take a closer look at your chart to make sure we're not missing anything here. Please keep an eye out for this ticket!
I need to be able to drill in by ticket ID as well. Also I just created a report in GoodData that shows Ticket Age, however I am not seeing where in Explore to set this Metric.
Hi Katrina,
You should be able to drillthrough for ticket IDs in a compatible query by clicking Chart congiguration>Drillthrough and ticking only Ticket ID.
Then click on the query to drillthrough per normal. If you are having issues with this, please send us a ticket to support@zendesk.com so we can look into this further.
For your query about Ticket Age, you should be able to use the metric called Unsolved tickets age from the Support: Tickets [default] data set in Explore.
Hi
Is there any change by using drill through, after click it will go into another report , same like insight drill-in after click it will go to another report ?
Hello, Teddy,
The expected behavior is to open a pop-up window with the Drillthrough table. It wouldn't open a different report. Are you having any issues with that functionality?
I would also like to be able to open a new report (like in Insights) by clicking queries. Or at least to have the functionality. That way I'd be able to work around the limitation of not having clickable ticket links available.
I have a strange issue. I created a query using the following metric:
Tickets - count
I applied these filters:
Ticket status - EXCLUDED closed, solved
Ticket group - (several groups selected)
Ticket created - this month
When I see the result for this query, I get a total ticket number of 4.
I then click the drillthrough and see a list of a whopping 9 (!!) tickets. 4 tickets pending, 5 tickets open.
Is my logic off, or did something go wrong?
Hey Veerle,
It looks like you have a ticket open with our Customer Advocacy team regarding this issue.
We will continue working with you there to resolve this.
Cheers!
I keep trying to use "Assignee Name" as a drillthrough column, but it is not appearing? How do I get that column to show up?
Hey Jonathan,
If you add Assignee Name as an attribute in your query does it then show up as a drillthrough option?
Let me know!
Yes that worked. I'll just have to make sure to use it as an attribute in all the queries.
Thank You.
Glad to hear it Jonathan!
Hi!
I have an issue. When i drillthrough a cell in a chart that has a value of "1", I get a list of 20 values.
Drillthrough result:
I expected only one result. Does anyone know what could be wrong?
@Daniela Sanguino
I posted a ticket with this question. Zendesk gave me this answer:
"I have checked your query and noticed that you don't have a filter for incident ticket type.
The drill-through feature in Explore uses a query level filter, and doesn't consider metric level filters."
Maybe this helps you too?
Good luck!
Drillthrough only works on a KPI when I am in the Configure Query window for the KPI, not from the dashboard itself. How does a viewer view the drillthrough from the dashboard only?
I'm having a lot of issues with the drill through:
1) Ticket IDs are not clickable
2) It is showing more than the report itself
3) 1 Ticket ID is showing multiple times in the drill through
4) Not showing all options to choose the attributes in the drill through (Public comments is not there)
And there are a lot more, I hope this issues can be fixed or maybe they are already fixed and I do not know but how it is at the moment I prefer the Insights drill in rather than this
Carl Cassar,
Thank you for the feedback. The issues you have mentioned are valid points.
We will be rebuilding the drill-in functionality in Explore. We plan to start working on this feature later this year but since it is a big project it is hard to say when exactly the improved Drill through functionality will be released.
You can create a clickable link in your queries by following these steps;
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022372293-Explore-recipe-Configuring-clickable-links-to-tickets
Your metrics and attributes might change depending on what you need in your report, but that article shows how to add the Ticket ID-Clickable Link attribute.
Hope that helps!
Hi Katina thank you for this, but why do we need to do these extra steps when it was much more easier to do in Insights? I hope Zendesk can fix this in Explore!
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