Saveen Reddy's blog : Dynamics AX 2009: Business Intelligence – Adding Links (via URL Drill Through) to Reports

Dynamics AX 2009: Business Intelligence – Adding Links (via URL Drill Through) to Reports

In this post we are going to learn how to make reports that have links in them.

As always, I start with some sample data. In this case, it will be a list of my favorite blogs.

START WITH THE DATA

First, I create a new Data Method

This is the source code for that Data Method

[DataMethod(), AxSessionPermission(SecurityAction.Assert)]
    public static System.Data.DataTable DataMethod1()
    {
        var favorite_blogs = new []
        {
            new {
                    Name="Visio Guy",
                    Url ="http://www.visguy.com/"},
            new {
                    Name="Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day",
                    Url ="http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/"},
            new {
                    Name="DisplayBlog",
                    Url ="http://www.displayblog.com/"}

};

        var datatable = Isotope.Data.DataUtil.DataTableFromEnumerable(favorite_blogs);
        return datatable;
    }

You can see from this example how easy it is to create a quick dataset via anonymous types.

And then create a new Data set …

And set the properties as appropriate to point to the Data Method

CREATE A DESIGN

Now just drag the Data Set into the Designs node and assign some style templates and preview…

The column layout isn’t perfect (we’ll correct that later).

So far what we have is just text. If you move the mouse over the URLs they are not treated as URLs but plain text. You can see from the screenshot below that although the cursor is right over the URL that the mouse retains it’s Arrow shape which indicates that this is just plain text.

Our next step will be to make them clickable.

ADD A URL DRILL THROUGH ACTION

Expand the design and find the Data > Url field and right click and select URL Drill Through Action

A new node will appear …

Examine its properties. We need to set the Expression value to something useful.

Click on that field and select “=Fields!Url.Value”

Now preview the report and move the mouse over a URL

As you can see, the cursor now has a hand shape. If you click a new window will launch to that URL

At this point we have the basics done. Let’s optimize the report.

HIDING THE RAW URLS

We don’t want to show the URLs in the report – we want the user to click on the NAME of the blog and that should go to the appropriate URL. This is simple to achieve.

Delete the Url from the design

Only the Name field will remain in the design. Right-Click on the Name field and add a URL Drill Through Action

You can see the new node is created.

Examine its properties. And set the Expression value to =Fields!Url.Value

The thing to notice here is that although the Url field has been deleted from the design (what is shown) of the report, the Url field from the data set that is bound to the report.

Now preview the report