Use charts as controls

Atlassian Analytics has drilldown functionality that makes it possible to filter charts using other charts. Once set up, you can select an area on a chart to update controls—those controls can be on the current dashboard or a different one. The control then updates any charts that are connected to it. Learn more about controls.

Setting up a drilldown is a two-part process:

1. Map your chart metrics to controls

2. Filter your charts with the controls

This is best explained with an example. We’ll start by showing you what the final dashboard looks like, then we’ll explain how to connect everything together.

The bar chart titled Issues created by month is what we’ll call the drilldown chart. Interacting with this chart updates two controls: a “Calendar” and a “Dropdown” control. The controls then update the bar chart titled Issues created by date. This gives us a zoomed-in view of our created issues by project type.

Let’s walk through how to set this up. Let’s say you already have the two charts and two controls on the dashboard:

1. Issues created by month: A chart grouped by month and project type

2. Issues created by day: A chart grouped by day and project type

3. A “Calendar” control named CALENDAR with a data type of Date range

4. A “Dropdown” control named PROJECT_TYPE containing project types

Connect the drilldown chart to controls

First, you want to connect the Issues created by month chart to your two controls. This allows your drilldown chart to update the controls whenever you select an area inside the chart.

To do this:

1. Hover over the drilldown chart.

2. Select More actions () > Edit settings. This opens the chart settings pop-up.

3. Go to the Drilldown tab.

4. For the Linked dashboard, select the dashboard containing the controls that you want to connect the drilldown chart to. In this example, the dashboard is Drilldowns playground. A section to map dashboard variables to drilldown variables will appear.

5. Select x-value to map to the “Calendar” control. This is because the dates in the drilldown chart are on the x-axis.

6. Select series to map to the “Dropdown” control. This is because the project types are the series of the drilldown chart.

7. Select Save.

Now when you select a specific bar in the drilldown chart, the “Calendar” and “Dropdown” controls will update with the selected date interval and project type.

X-values, y-values, and series

Generally, x-values map to the x-axis, y-values to the y-axis, and series to the columns.

If you’re unsure you’re selecting the correct chart metric to map to your controls, Atlassian Analytics provides sample values below the dropdown for the drilldown variable when you select an option. This makes it easier for you to confirm you’re selecting the right one.

Link to another dashboard

To link your drilldown chart to another dashboard, select that dashboard for the Linked dashboard. The section to map dashboard variables to drilldown variables will show the dashboard variables that exist in the selected dashboard.

Linking to another dashboard also gives you the option to Pass all variables. If selected, all the current values of the other controls on the drilldown dashboard are passed to your linked dashboard. For this to work properly, the controls on the drilldown dashboard and the linked dashboard must be exactly the same. If the control is not connected directly to the drilldown chart, select No effect for its drilldown variable.

Connect the controls to your other charts

Now that your drilldown chart is set up, you need to connect the “Calendar” and “Dropdown” controls to the Issues created by day chart so it updates when the controls’ values change.

To connect these controls to the chart:

1. Hover over the Issues created by day chart.

2. Select More actions () > Edit chart. This will take you to the chart editor.

3. Let’s assume you use a visual mode query to create the chart. You’ll need to add two filter conditions to the query to connect the chart to the controls:

   1. Project type is one of {PROJECT_TYPE}

   2. Created date between and including {CALENDAR.START} and {CALENDAR.END}

4. Select to Save to dashboard.

And that’s it! Now you can use your drilldown chart as a control to update other charts.