Introduction

The Aptean Report Data Designer (RDD) extension is an advanced, user-centric solution that helps you to create, configure, and deploy custom reports without requiring AL development expertise. It supports in building tailored business reports efficiently and cost-effectively while maintaining adherence to AL coding standards and best practices.

With this extension, you can visually design reports by defining data structures, selecting fields, and configuring relationships, filters, and sorting options through an intuitive interface. The system then automatically generates the required AL code and packages the report as a Business Central extension for direct deployment.

The Aptean Report Data Designer extension is designed for various roles across the organization:

• Sales Managers: To create detailed customer and sales analysis reports.
• Financial Controllers: To produce financial and budget variance reports.

Additionally, this extension can be used by business analysts, operational managers, and other functional users who require customized reporting.

The key benefits of using this extension are:

• No-Code Report Development: Design and generate complete AL report objects directly within Business Central, without any coding.
• Flexible Field Management: Select and configure fields, captions, and formats; control visibility; and assign usage (display, filter, sorting, request filter).
• Advanced Data Operations:
  • Define static and dynamic filters for runtime data refinement.
  • Configure multi-level sorting options for structured report output.
  • Create calculated fields using aggregation functions or custom formulas.
• Seamless Deployment: Package the generated report as a Business Central extension (.app file) and deploy directly to the target environment or download for manual installation.

Understanding your responsibilities

The Report Data Designer supports powerful, custom multi-table datasets that have the potential to materially affect runtime performance. You should always design reports with performance in mind and validate them in a sandbox before production.
Exported reports must be managed by you. After every Business Central or Aptean update, you are responsible for testing your reports and making any required adjustments to ensure they remain compatible with the system.