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Epiglossary

Deploy and upgrade reports

Kinetic + Classic

You never edit a report on the report server directly. The RDL files go down to your machine through the report style, you edit them in Report Builder, and they go back up the same way. This page covers that round trip, the zip format the Kinetic client expects, and what changes when reports move between environments or versions.

The download/upload round trip

Section titled “The download/upload round trip”
  1. In Report Style Maintenance, select the style and choose Actions > Download SSRS Report.
  2. Pick an empty local folder. Epicor recreates the server’s folder structure under it, for example reports\CustomReports\SalesOrderAcknowledgement\SOAck.rdl, along with any subreports.
  3. Edit the RDL in Report Builder and save it in place.
  4. Back in the style, choose Actions > Upload SSRS Report and select the same root folder.

Both actions need the SSRS Report Designer security option. You can only upload to custom styles; system styles are read-only.

Uploading from Kinetic: reports.zip

Section titled “Uploading from Kinetic: reports.zip”

In the Kinetic client, you upload a zip file instead of choosing a folder, and the zip has to be exact:

  • It must be called reports.zip.
  • Inside it, the folders must reproduce the report’s path on the server, starting at reports.
Style’s report location Inside reports.zip
Standard AR invoice folder reports/ARInvoiceForm/ARForm.rdl
A custom sales order acknowledgment reports/CustomReports/SalesOrderAcknowledgement/SOAck.rdl

The RDL named in the style’s Report Location must be in the zip at exactly that path, or the upload fails. You can include the rest of the folder, such as a kit components subreport next to the main report, but any .rdl that the report doesn’t use as a subreport is ignored.

Testing against saved data

Section titled “Testing against saved data”

Two habits make report development faster:

  • Archive a sample run. Print a representative document with an Archive Period, and you can re-preview that same data from the System Monitor after each upload.
  • Generate for design. On the report form, File > Generate for Design extracts the data without printing. From the System Monitor, Actions > Design SSRS Report opens the SSRS Report Design program, where you can download the report, preview your local copy against that extracted data, and publish it when you’re happy.

Moving reports between environments

Section titled “Moving reports between environments”

Use Solution Workbench to move custom reports from a test environment to production, so the report style, its RDD and the RDL files travel together, rather than recreating styles by hand and uploading files.

When an upload keeps failing

Section titled “When an upload keeps failing”

Occasionally a style gets stuck: every upload fails even with a known-good RDL. Copy the style with Actions > Copy Report Style, and in the copy change the Report Location to a new folder. Epicor creates the new folder, which detaches the style from the broken one. Upload to the copy, then retire the old style.

Upgrading older reports

Section titled “Upgrading older reports”

Custom reports built on Epicor 10.2 usually carry forward, but check these after an upgrade:

  • Re-upload through reports.zip. If you’re moving reports by hand from a 10.2 system to Kinetic, rebuild the folder structure above rather than uploading loose files.
  • AR invoices built on the old RDD. Older custom AR invoice styles were copied from the ARForm RDD, while the standard report now uses the ARInvoice RDD. The old copies can stop printing after an upgrade because of the field limit. See Troubleshooting.
  • Custom code around reports. Newer Kinetic releases run BPM and function code on Entity Framework Core, and code that loops over an open query can fail. See Fix “There is already an open DataReader”.

Sources

This page is written in our own words. It was informed by: