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Filters narrow a dashboard. Investigate explains it. Click a single value. Orion recomputes that number from the source data. It compares the number with the period before, if one exists. It also breaks the number into its parts. The answer opens in a rail beside the dashboard. This is not the chat panel. Investigate returns a fixed set of computed facts with their provenance, and declines when the math will not hold up rather than guessing.

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Starting an investigation

Click any mark on a card:
  • A point on a line chart
  • A bar, including a single segment of a grouped or stacked bar
  • A pie segment
  • A row in a table
  • A KPI tile
The rail opens on the right. The dashboard stays live behind it, so filters and other cards keep working while an answer loads.
A dashboard with the Investigate rail open over its right edge and the whole rail outlined in red. The rail is headed Applications in Queue and shows the clicked value, how the latest month compares with the one before, and a breakdown by region. The dashboard behind it stays fully rendered rather than shrinking to make room

Illustrative

Scatter plots, heat maps, waterfall charts, and box plots are not clickable. Their marks have no mapping back to a measure, so Investigate is unavailable on those cards.

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What the answer contains

The rail shows the clicked value immediately, then fills in each computed part as it arrives:
  • The value: the number recomputed from the source data, not read off the chart
  • Change: the same measure for the previous period, with the delta and percent change. An incomplete period is compared against the prior period truncated to the same elapsed point, labeled “vs same point in”
  • Signal: whether the change is a real shift or ordinary variation, judged against the measure’s recent history. A sustained shift also reports when it began
  • Breakdown: which members the number is made of, or which ones moved it. The two are different, and the rail says which one you are looking at
  • Provenance: the snapshot it was computed from, when it was computed, and which filters were in scope
Color follows the measure, not the arrow. A fall in churn reads as good, a fall in revenue does not. Where a card offers more than one breakdown dimension, each appears as a chip under the heading. Selecting one reshapes the breakdown in place, without starting a new investigation.
A dashboard with the Investigate rail open for a KPI called Applications in Queue, and the breakdown portion of the rail outlined in red. Under a heading reading What makes up this number, Region name and Office status are offered as chips with Region name selected, followed by six rows from Metro South down to an Other row, each carrying a count and a percent share. The clicked KPI tile on the dashboard behind is ringed to show where the answer came from

Illustrative

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Scope is frozen at the click

An investigation captures the dashboard’s filters at the moment you click, so the answer cannot drift while you read it. Chips at the top of the rail show that frozen scope and where each part of it came from. Change the dashboard filters while the rail is open and a Filters changed marker appears. The answer on screen still describes the scope you originally clicked.

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Following the thread

Each answer suggests its own next questions as chips, either a further breakdown or a trend over time. A chip is named for what it will do, like By Region. Click a chip to run a new investigation in the same rail. A trail across the top shows where you have been, such as Actual › Acute. The X at the top right closes the investigation. For any other question, use the footer. It asks How was this number made? and offers Ask Orion why. That button sends the current scope to chat.

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When Orion declines

Investigate withholds an answer rather than produce a number it cannot stand behind. The reason is always specific: More than one can appear at once, each in its own card. Ask Orion why remains available underneath in every case.
A dashboard with the Investigate rail open and outlined in red. The rail is headed Avg Review Rate and shows the value and a line comparing the latest month against the one before, but in place of a breakdown it carries a single card reading that averages, ratios, and distinct counts cannot be split into parts that add up, suggesting Ask Orion to compare segments

Illustrative

The example above is an average. Its value and its movement both resolve, and only the breakdown declines, because a share-of-total split of an average would not add up. Parts of an answer fail independently.

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Who can use it

Anyone who can open the dashboard, including Viewers. Investigate only reads data, it never changes the dashboard. See Filter and Explore for the other controls that need no edit access.