Ax2009 Enus Devi 02

Chapter 5: Reports
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CHAPTER 5: REPORTS
Objectives
The objectives are:
• Identify the three main sections that make up a report.
• Add data sources to a report to define what data is displayed by the
report.
• Create a report design with multiple sections and controls.
• Override system methods to control the fetch and display of data
Introduction
Reports play an important role inMicrosoft Dynamics® AX as they are often
used by users who do not normally access the system, and so need to run a report
to view data. Other users prefer to have a printed hard copy of the data within
Microsoft Dynamics AX to work with during their day to day routines.
Some companies have been using the same format of a report for years, and so it
is important to be able to replicate thatformat as closely as possible.
Therefore a developer needs to be able to retrieve the correct data from the tables
and display it in a specific format in the report.
There are three parts of a report that enable you to do this. They are as follows:
• The report architecture
• Report data sources
• Report Designs
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Development III in Microsoft Dynamics® AX 2009
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Scenario
Arnie, the Accounts Receivable clerk, has requested a report that shows the
maximum, minimum and average invoice amounts per customer. Isaac, the
systems developer, has been asked to create this report and to ensure that the
report is printed with a title, date and page numbers onevery page.
Architecture
Use reports to print information from the database. The report focuses on the
following:
• Fetching the data
• Filtering the data
• Sorting the data
• Aggregating the data
• Presenting the data in the correct layout
The figure illustrates the structure of the report as displayed in the Application
Object tree (AOT).
FIGURE 5.1 THE THREE SECTIONS OF A REPORTThe report consists of three main components in the AOT:
• General methods
• Data sources
• Designs
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Chapter 5: Reports
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Methods
The general or system methods control the execution of the report. These
methods are frequently overridden to supplement ormodify the standard
execution of a report. Variables defined in the class declaration of the report can
be accessed from all methods in the report and can be used to hold status and
general information about the report.
Data Sources
Reports are designed to use a query to fetch the data. This section of the report
contains the definition of the query. The structure is similar to the independentqueries in the AOT.
Default filtering ranges and sorting can be specified that the user can override, or
they can be locked to force specific criteria. There is no need to use a
QueryBuildRange object in the code to specify simple filtering, as there is with
forms.
Sorting can be specified as Order By or Group By in the Order mode property on
the data source. Specifying the Group Byparameter on the data source enables
aggregating or summing of the fields in the tables. This is a common requirement
in reports. Specifying Sort by will mean that the report is sorted by the fields
specified in the Sorting node.
Design
The design of the report controls the layout and presentation of the data. There
can be many sections to a report design. Some sections are specific to a table, andwill be printed whenever a record in that table is sent. Other sections, for
example, headers and footers, only print in specific sections on the page. There
are also Programmable sections that will only be printed when specifically called
from code.
There can also be multiple designs in a report. This might be used, for example,
when there are different layouts required for an invoice in...