Getting Started: Report Layouts
Attention
Before you start using Document Creator, please make sure you have completed the steps in the Installation Manual. An active Apportunix Subscription or Product Key (legacy) needs to be set up to run reports with a Document Creator layout in a Production environment.
In the Dynamics 365 Business Central client use the Tell Me search feature to navigate to the Report Layouts page as follows:
Tip
Alternatively, you may want to use the Document Creator User-Defined Report Layouts page to more easily manage the user-defined layouts in your Business Central environment.
The Report Layouts page shows a list of all the report layouts in your Dynamics 365 Business Central environment, both User-Defined ('Tenant') and extension-provided report layouts. By default, the page shows the following columns for each report layout record:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Report ID | The ID of the target report object. The report object defines how the report dataset is generated in code. |
| Report Name | The caption of the target report object. |
| Layout Name | The name of the report layout. |
| Description | A description of the report layout. |
| Extension | The extension that provides the report layout. Only applies to extension-provided report layouts. For user-defined/tenant report layouts this field will be blank. |
| Type | The type/layout format of the report layout which can be either "RDLC", "Word", "Excel", or "External". "Document Creator" layouts have type/layout format "External" and MIME type reportlayout/dcrx. |
| User Defined | Whether the report layout is a user-defined one, i.e., a tenant report layout created by a Dynamics 365 Business Central user. |
| Export Profile Code | The Document Creator Export Profile that will be used when the report is run with this report layout. Only applies to Document Creator report layouts. See Export Profiles. |
Tip
Note that you can switch between Views to change what is displayed on the page. The following views will be available when Document Creator is installed:
- All - Show all report layouts.
- Document Creator - Show all Document Creator report layouts.
- External - Show all report layouts of type/layout format "External".
- User-Defined - Show all user-defined report layouts.
- Extensions - Show all extension-provided report layouts.
All page actions added by the Document Creator extension can be found under a "Document Creator" group, and accordingly all promoted actions can be found under the promoted category named "Document Creator".
The Document Creator extension also adds two new factboxes to the Report Layouts page:
-
A factbox which shows the archived versions for the selected user-defined report layout.
-
A factbox which shows the report layout selections for the selected layout's report for all companies.
From this page you can perform the following tasks for report layouts:
- Creating and Copying Layouts
- Editing Layouts using Design Files
- Importing and Exporting Layout Packages
- Archiving and Restoring Previous Versions of Layouts
- Configuring Layout Selections
- Creating Support Files