Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, as well as the two former Dynamics AX products (AX 2012 and AX 2009), has always offered wonderful custom tools for SSRS report development using queries as the data source. It is the easiest and fastest way to create an SSRS report, primarily for internal corporate use when fancy formatting is not an objective.
Queries and views have identical structures for the data source. A query is needed to create a query-based SSRS report. However, you cannot just open an AX query to see what it can display in the report. Instead, you can open a view, either in the table browser or by using SQL Server Management Studio, to view the data. That allows you to see the data that you want to display in the report.
After you create the view, you can create a query that is based on that view. All you need to do is create a simple query and set the data source property to the view you created.
Then, you can build the report in the same way as you would have if you had created the query with the same structure as the view. You just get the added benefit of examining data via the view before you even begin to write your report.
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By: Mary Ann Hand