Interacting with dashboards in Dynamics CRM 2011 is a powerful way to monitor and manage your business.  Frequently, however, it would be helpful to “drill into” only a portion of a chart (such as a bar in a bar chart or a slice of a pie chart) to see the grid behind it.  Because of the way that dashboards function, however, it is not readily apparent how to do this.  This post demonstrates how you can accomplish this in just two mouse clicks.

1. While hovering over the chart that you want to drill into, click the “view the records” icon on the upper right-hand side of the chart.  You will be taken to a grid showing all of the data for the cart (not just the data for the desired section).  The chart will also appear next to the grid.
    
2. Click the section that you want to see the data for.

That’s it!  In two clicks, you’ve been able to drill from a dashboard, to a chart, to the data behind a specific slice of a chart.  See the nearby video for a live example.