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Last week at Directions EMEA, Claus Lundstrom and I had a parallel session which was a pitty because we both had interesting messaging around RDLC Reporting. Fortunately we both had a good number of attendees who got what they came for.

While my presentation was primairaly about converting Classic reports to RDLC2005, Claus told his audience about the future of reporting in NAV "7".

There are some important things to understand from Claus' session

1. Classic Reports are discontinued

In Dynamics NAV 2009 we had the possibility to run classic reports from the RTC. This will be no longer possible in "7". This means that it is mandatory to upgrade your reports in the next version.

2. NAV "7" uses RDLC 2008

NAV 2009 is currently supporting RDLC 2005 which brings along some quite important limmitations. Most important is the fact that it does not support using the dataset in the Header and Footer of the report. This causes the funny movement of data that we know from especially the document reports such as the sales invoice.
NAV "7" will run on RDLC 2008 that removes this limmitation. This is a huge step forward in terms of usability of RDLC in ERP documents

3. NAV "7" upgrades from both Classic AND RLDC2005

Reports that have been upgraded to RDLC 2005 do not have to be redesigned in RDLC 2008. NAV will provide an upgrade tool. Hopefully NAV "7" will also upgrade from classic reports with header and footer data directly to RDLC 2008 without the funny datamovement.

4. NAV "7" enables creating datasets

Currently the classic report sections design our dataset. This will no longer be the case in NAV "7" where we create the dataset directly using a new designer

5. NAV "7" will have better looking reports

Microsoft has decided to apply the Dynamics AX guides to the NAV reports to they will look better. The most frequently used reports in the standard product will be enhanced

6. We can count report usage

Remember this post? I discussed this with Microsoft and they agreed to ship a hotfix to make this possible out of the box! Watch my blog for the HF#.

7. Getting more curious?

Too bad. This is all we are allowed to blog about at the moment, or maybe already too much.

Key message?
Start exploring RDLC TODAY! And start converting those reports. There is no extra effort to redo them with NAV "7" other than maybe some simplyfication where the header and footer are concerned
Orriginal Blogpost:

http://dynamicsuser.net/blogs/mark_brum ... -quot.aspx

SInce developers and users can use Classic reports for processing, are they planning to add that capability elsewhere?

Since this was a presentation at Directions, is this public to all partners only?
As a partner, can I get more info or is this more limited?

This is what we are allowed to blog. I am sure that you can get more info from MS USA.

Processing only reports are not affected by this message. They stay as they are today. No changes.

If Microsoft reads this (I hope), they should seriously consider a 2009R3 release that includes this report upgrade. They should give us the opportunity to use this new design tool for a year before they frop the old.
We always install the current release, which means:
1) all our new clients are already running SQL Server 2008, and the newer ones R2
2) all our newer clients are RTC using SP1 or R2
However we have still used Classic reports for new reports most of the time, and the current design tools are bad.
Give us the new design tool now, and it won't be such an abrupt transition to NAV 7.

TRUE! No further effort needed if you convert your reports now.
I think the biggest problem is that NOW we have further effort that we have to do to put in place the "funny movement" that Mark talked about. (you know, get&setdata/reportitems...)
Second (smaller) problem is that if the report is only run through RTC: we must build the classic designer, no matter what.

My conclusion is: if you start doing them now, you're doing the 110% of the work, not the 90%: it's quite different!

whops, i just noticed that mark already wrote

It's one thing to do them now. It's another to have a customer who is willing to pay you to do them now. If they are happy with classic reports there is no benefit to them, and no reason to pay.

Should every developer know how the new reporting works, absolutely. It's been around for, what, 2 1/2 years or so. Should already know it if you ask me, but maybe I'm just ambitious

We may have no choice in learning the new reports now.
However, it is upsetting that they will finally come out with a more usable set of tools in version 7.
SQL Server 2008 has been out for longer than NAV 2009. They could have started out with SQL Server 2008 with its better RDLC and a better way of handling the datasets. (SQL Server 2005 support should only have been available for Classic clients.)
We have been pushed into the "Vista" version of RTC.
They should have done more work on the development tools before releasing the product.

Hi,

I have got one question. Most of our customers who went live with NAV2009 use classic reports form RTC. This made us lazy to design RTC reports. So there are cases when the existing RTC layout is deleted to allow classic report changes. Will the upgrade or the tool you are talking about redesign these RTC reports as per classic reports, or should these be done manually.

We have to create manually..

Give a try on Suggest Layout...

Hi,

suggest layout does not work i checked it when NAV2009 was released. I did suggest other developers not to delete layout, or fields which are nto needed as part of customization. But its too late now. The manual doesn't contain full RTC report design. It's missing the code bit, and someother stuff which i can't remember now at this minute

If the reports are standard then you can import them from Cronus database.

I was actually talking about customized reports.

Start with Create Suggest layout and modify it..

O mohana.... don't you think we all know that.... My question was how will upgrate tool helps?if it is useful or not?