AX 2012 - Report Layout and Style Templates

In a recent post, I talked about AX 2012 and Diving into BI Analytics as a starting point back into a series of post around The BI Story for AX 2012. The point of this series of post, is to drive understanding of the BI options in Dynamics AX, and therefore driving value around making the most use out of your investment.



To help continue this series, I will start to dive into more and more specifics around AX 2012 & BI, specifically around creating BI artifacts with the out-of-the-box tools.

To that end, recently I was working with a long time client, and one of the things that was brought up was the use of Report Templates, in reference to how these could be used in Microsoft Dynamics AX MorphX reports in the past.



Just to be clear on this point, you have the ability to have Layout Templates as well as Style Templates. As I've done in the past with such articles, I would like to start this deeper dive, with referencing what Microsoft has provided for us on MDSN. As I've also stated in the past, Microsoft has been doing a great job with the release of AX 2012 around documentation and this topic is covered with some nice resources.

The following is that resource list:

• Using Report Layout and Style Templates [AX 2012] - Home on MDSN for this topic
• Predefined Layout and Style Templates [AX 2012] - A very detailed listing of the predefined templates in AX 2012, including the desired report type in which each can be applied.
• How to: Create a Layout or Style Template [AX 2012] - A nice how to article on creating layout & style templates
• How to: Apply a Layout or Style Template [AX 2012] - A final how to on applying layout & style templates in AX 2012

Now with these resources in hand, we have the ability to start making use of layout & style templates, understand the value, and create our very own if so desired.

To a point of use for these, for example, say in an Auto Design scenario you would like to have the Company Name, Page information, etc on the header of your auto design reports. This was very common need with MorphX reports. Well in order to do this, you could follow the how to on applying Layout & Style templates, and use that to apply the ReportLayoutStyleTemplate which has said information as part of the header.

Further, you can create your own custom layout and style templates that might contain specific design elements, or parts of Header information that help create a specific an uniformed rendering of reports that can go very far with the user base.

The point to be taking, is it's still possible to achieve this same need as it was in AX MorphX reports, with the new reporting model of AX SSRS.

With that, I will end this post and thought process for now. I hope that as we continue down this path, you will see more and more the flexibility and depth of Reporting and BI artifact creation that exists out-of-the-box for AX 2012. Till Next Time!

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