Report Design Guidelines

Reports are tools that present views of data in one location for business planning, operation, and documentation purposes.

The goal of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Report Design Guidelines is to help you design reports that are:

  • Simple and clean.

  • Easy to scan and read.

  • Professional and consistent.

Design concepts

Reports in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 R2 are designed by using the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Development Environment and Microsoft Reporting Services. In turn, users can run reports using the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Windows client and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Web client.

We recommend designing reports according to the standard report templates, and following the associated guidelines. Design a custom style of report only when your application has special requirements not met by the standard templates.

For more information about which Report Designer settings to use when you design reports, see Report Elements and Properties.

There are three typical report templates in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Report template Typical use

Document Report

Formal outgoing reports. Examples include sales invoice and order confirmation.

List Report

Internal reports that show data at one level with a unique key row by row. Reports are mostly overviews of master data or transaction data. Examples include customer list, vendor list, and item list.

Grouped List Report

Internal reports that show data grouped per key. Reports are typically a combination of master data and connected data. Examples include customer and vendor statistics and customer item/sales details.

See Also

Concepts

Design Principles
User Interface Design Guidelines