Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Book Image

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting

Overview of this book

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is widely used in enterprises with its enhanced reporting features, but there still isn’t a book that covers reporting in depth, until now. This book will show you what’s possible and exactly how to develop reports for Dynamics NAV 2009. Learn why reports are designed in a specific way and then apply this knowledge to your advantage. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting is an essential guide to understanding the effort involved in creating reports in Dynamics NAV 2009, and all of the available reporting possibilities. Reading this book will result in a better understanding and it will help you save time during development.The book starts with an overview of what kind of reports you can create without a developer using charts, dimensions, and analysis views. The next chapter will introduce the new architecture of Role Tailored Client (RTC) reports and the basics on how to create them or have them generated. Moving on we will discuss data visualization, where you will learn how and when to implement all the available Visual Studio controls. Document reports and other types of specific reports are covered next, and you will get to know all the best workarounds for getting them to work correctly.Knowing other related features is vitally important to obtain a helicopter view of all the reporting possibilities of Dynamics NAV, and the next chapter will introduce Business Intelligence concepts and available technologies that could be used in combination with the Dynamics NAV database. Technology is evolving rapidly and new versions of Dynamics NAV are in the pipeline, so the book will also provide you with a view to the future and how to prepare for it.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009: Professional Reporting
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Changing the template


When you click on the View | Layout option for a report that does not have an enhanced layout, then an empty enhanced layout is created. But, did you now know that Dynamics NAV uses a template for this, and that you can make changes to this template?

The template can be found in the installation directory of the Dynamics NAV 2009 Classic client. The default location is:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics NAV\60\Classic

As you can see in the following print screen, there are actually two templates:

  • ReportLayout2005

  • ReportLayout2008

When you are using Visual Studio 2005 then Dynamics NAV will use ReportLayout2005 and when you use Visual Studio 2008 then Dynamics NAV will use ReportLayout2008.

Inside the ReportLayout2008 folder, you can see the following files:

You can open this template by double-clicking on the file: ReportLayout.sln. Visual Studio will open and you will see an empty report layout, as you do when you create a new report from within Dynamics NAV.

You can...