drillup

Drillup is a term used in data analysis, business intelligence, and OLAP contexts to describe navigation from a lower level of detail to a higher level of aggregation within a data hierarchy. It is the opposite of drill-down. In practical terms, a user examining a dataset at the city level can drill up to the state or country level to view summarized metrics such as total sales, average order value, or customer counts at the higher level. Drill-up is commonly available in dashboards, reports, and data exploration tools through UI elements labeled drill up, up, or via breadcrumb trails that ascend the hierarchy. In SQL and data warehousing, the same concept is often implemented as a roll-up or as aggregation that reduces granularity.

Hierarchies that support drill-up include time (day -> month -> quarter -> year), geography (city -> state -> country), product categories, and organizational structures. The usefulness of drill-up lies in gaining a broader context, identifying trends, and comparing aggregate performance across higher-level segments. Limitations include uneven or incomplete hierarchies, data quality issues at higher levels, and potential loss of detail that might be necessary for certain analyses. Not all tools support all levels or maintain perfectly consistent measures when moving up.

See also drill-down, roll-up, OLAP, data cube, hierarchical data.