How to reuse content in different reports and update it on change

Environment

Product

Progress® Telerik® Reporting

Description

Basically, the Report Templates can be starting points for creating an initial report layout and styling. However, any modifications made to the template will not be reflected in the already created reports. This is due to the fact that each declarative report definition (i.e. TRDP/X file) is existing as a self-contained XML (or packed XML) file with all the necessary information held within the file. This behavior is by design and makes the created reports independent.

Solution

For such a scenario, we would recommend the usage of the Subreport item. Let the subreport contain the common content for the (main) reports. Note that this content should be placed in the detail section of the report. After that, add a Subreport item to the reports which require the same content. If a change is needed in the repeating content, you can easily make it in the subreport and it will be applied to all reports which contain it.

Demo

You can visit our GitHub Repository which contains sample reports that demonstrate the approach and a video showing how it works.