Displaying order history
Let's take the example of online shopping. When an order with multiple items is placed, it goes through various steps. The order is processed, payment is received, each item in the order is prepared for shipment, it is shipped, delivered and when all items are delivered, the order is considered complete.
When there are 100s of such orders, what is a good way to provide a visual representation of all this with the option to drill down into details. The top level could be an executive summary with pie charts, bar graphs, etc. to show number of orders, their state, total dollar amount, etc. The next level could zoom into (need help here). The lowest level is the traditional rows & columns report that dumps the de-normalized data for the user to slice and dice on their own.
From a data model perspective, this is a master-detail relationship so I researched master detail patterns but none of them appealed to me because they follow a Inbox style UI where you select one item and drill down into its details. I am envisioning multiple levels of visualization, each with more detail. The accepted answer to this question came closest to what I have in mind but I am not clear on how to adapt it to my scenario above.
Any help appreciated. Thanks.