Wouldn’t it be great if you could create layouts using the latest features of the Financial Report Designer, including the Layout Generator and Task Pane that also work in older versions of Sage Intelligence? The great news is that you can design modern layouts and still have it work in older versions.
Perhaps you’re a business partner, using the latest version of Sage Intelligence, but have clients still using an older version. In this tip we’ll show you how to design modern layouts that also work in older versions.
We’ll begin by creating a layout using a later instance of the Report Designer and then apply it to the Report Designer Add-in report in an older version of the software.
Please note this tip applies to the following products:
- Sage 100 Intelligence Reporting
- Sage 300 Intelligence Reporting
- Sage 500 Intelligence Reporting
Creating the layout
1. Create a copy of the Financial Report Designer in your Report Manager and then run it out.
2. Design the layout for your customer using the modern functionality of either the Layout Generator or Task Pane.
3. Once complete, save the template back to the report in the Report Manager.
4. Export the report to a medium that will allow you to access it from your customers system, for example, to your desktop so that you can attach it in an email or to a flash disk.
Applying the layout in the customer’s system
1. In your customer’s Report Manager create a new folder. I’ve called mine New Layouts.
2. Import the copy of the Financial Report Designer you exported above into the new folder.
3. Make a copy of the Report Designer Add-in report and place it in the new folder as well.
4. Run out the Report Designer Add-in report, save the workbook to the desktop and then close it.
5. Next, run out the Financial Report Designer report and leave the workbook open. The layout you created will be in it.
6. Open up the Report Designer Add-in workbook again from the desktop.
7. Go back to the Financial Report Designer and copy the layout by selecting the cell area and pressing CTRL + C on your keyboard.
8. Then in the Report Designer Add-in workbook, add a new sheet, select cell A1 and paste the layout into the sheet by pressing CTRL + V.
The layout will be added and the formulas will update. If they show zero values then you may need to change the report headings to the correct values for the customer’s data.
9. The last step is to save the new layout back to the Report Designer Add-in report in the Report Manager using Save Excel Template.
There are two things to note when doing this:
- If the layout you’ve created uses newer formulas that aren’t available in the older report, for example Account Description, they will not work once the layout has been copied into it.
- The other is that the Reporting Trees are not copied across. So if the layout you’ve created uses them, they will need to be recreated in the older report.
If you would like more information on how to export and import reports then take a look at the following video:
