Reporting in Dynamics AX 2009 : Building Dynamics AX Reporting Services Reports Using Visual Studio

Dynamics AX Reporting Development Tools

Dynamics AX 2009 includes development tools that enable developers to create Dynamics AX Reporting Services production reports in Visual Studio 2008. The new development tools have been created from the ground up to be fully integrated with Dynamics AX. These tools provide report designers the benefit of working within the familiar Visual Studio 2008 IDE and the ability to leverage rich reporting features from Reporting Services.

The Dynamics AX reporting development tools comprise a modeling tool that allows report designers to visualize the report elements as they are developing a report. The report is fully customizable within Visual Studio. The reports created are in the Report Definition Language (RDL) format specified by Reporting Services. By utilizing this widely adopted format, report designers can leverage the many features (e.g., charting, interactivity, and access to multiple data sources, as mentioned earlier) that make Reporting Services a popular choice for production reports. These reports can then be deployed, stored, managed, and processed on the report server using the Reporting Services technology.

Integration with Dynamics AX

The Dynamics AX reporting tools include a new Visual Studio project type called “Dynamics AX Reporting Project.” This project type allows developers to create Reporting Services reports that bind to data in Dynamics AX.

A Dynamics AX Reporting Project has the following features:

• Allows a report to retrieve from AOS via .NET Business Connector

• Defines report parameters

• Uses localized strings for report elements

• Edits and saves reports in the AOT

• Deploys reports to the report server

Report Development Life Cycle

Figure 1 is a high-level view of the report development process.

Figure 1 illustrates the primary tasks performed during the two major stages of the report life cycle. At design time, the report developer designs the report with the Dynamics AX reporting tools in Visual Studio 2008, performs the desired customization, and previews the report design. When the report is ready, the developer deploys the report by using the built-in report deployment feature in Visual Studio or the Dynamics AX 2009 Reports Deployment tool. After the reports are deployed, they are ready to be viewed in the Dynamics AX client and Enterprise Portal. Administrators can configure menu items, and Web parts open the deployed reports.

Reporting Tools Model Elements

In the following sections, we introduce several important model elements of reporting tools. If you understand these model elements and the way they work, you can develop reports quickly and easily. Figure 2 shows a typical Report Model Editor as it appears when you first create a report project.

A few collection objects, such Reports and Report Style Templates, are at the root level. Each collection object has zero or more child objects.

Reports

Each Dynamics AX Reporting Project contains one or more report models. Each model has exactly one root Reports element. This element contains all the reports in the current model.

Every model corresponds to a .moxl file displayed in Solution Explorer. Figure 3 shows a report project in Visual Studio 2008 Solution Explorer.

Report Designs

A report design is a particular layout for a report. A single report can have multiple designs that form the basic blueprints for the rendered reports. Report developers have the option of creating auto designs or precision designs.

• Auto designs An auto design is automatically generated based on the information specified in the report model. You create auto designs in Model Editor. The auto design functionality provides an efficient way to create the most common types of reports, such as a customer list or a list of inventory items.

• Precision designs Precision designs are typically used when a report requires a precise layout, such as invoices or bank checks. When creating a precision design, you can manually drag fields onto a report, placing them exactly where you want them.

Auto design layout

An auto design follows a particular layout. It has a header, a body containing one or more data regions, and a footer, as shown in Figure 4.

You can control the content that is displayed in each area within an auto design. For example, you can include a report title and the date in the header and display the page number in the footer, or you can leave the header and footer blank.

The data regions that display in an auto design depend on the data sets you create when you define the data for the report in Model Editor. When you define a data set, you can specify the type of data region that is used to render the data whenever that data set is used in an auto design. Data can be displayed in table, list, matrix, or chart format. One way to create an auto design is simply to drag a data set onto the Designs node for the auto design in the model.

Precision design layout

A precision design is free-form, and its format can vary depending on the layout required for particular reports.

Structure of a Dynamics AX Reporting Project

Figure 5 shows the hierarchical relationship among project, model, reports, and designs.

Report projects are Microsoft Visual C# or Microsoft Visual Basic container projects in which one or more report models can be stored as .moxl files. Each report model, visualized in Model Editor, can include multiple reports, and each report can contain multiple designs, regardless of whether they are auto designs or precision designs.

Report Data Sources

Data sources are crucial to the development of useful production reports. The very purpose of a production report is to retrieve data from its source and to display the data in a fashion that is easy for users to consume. A major benefit of the Dynamics AX Visual Studio reporting tools is the ability to connect to a variety of different types of report data sources. Even better, a report can display data from multiple data sources. Table 1 lists the data source types supported by the Dynamics AX Visual Studio reporting tools.

Dynamics AX is a predefined data source that allows you to connect to OLTP data stored in Dynamics AX. It supports both SQL Server and Oracle databases. It also allows you to bind data sets to data methods that contain your custom business logic that returns a DataTable.

The report developer needs to define the SQL or OLAP data source type. You need to create a new data source under the Report DataSources node, specify the Connection String property, and select the desired data provider type (SQL or OLAP). By doing so, you give your reports the ability to connect directly to the data source instead of having to go through the AOS, which is the process with the Dynamics AX data source type.

Data Methods

You use a data method to write the code for your report’s business logic. You can add a data method by creating a new subnode under Data Methods in the Report Model. After you have done so, you can bring up the code editing window by double-clicking the new data method node. What you see is the standard C# or Visual Basic code editing environment that every .NET developer should be familiar with.

You can find all the Visual Studio features you’re familiar with, such as IntelliSense and syntax highlighting. You can also reference any of the .NET libraries to increase your productivity and get creative with your business logic. By adding references in the project, you also have access to a wider variety of helper classes and libraries that you’ve created.