SSRS Generate For Design Step-by-Step

Kinetic ERP
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Finally (grudgingly), I am trying to switch to using the Kinetic tools for modifying report styles. I didn’t find anything online with a detailed step-by-step process, so I wrote it up for internal use. Thought I’d share it here as the process is somewhat convoluted and unintuitive, so this might be useful to somebody.

  1. Local workstation prerequisites:

    1. MS Report Builder is installed and is the default app for .rdl file extension.

    2. Epicor Edge Agent is installed and configured.

    3. Your Epicor user account has SSRS Report Designer rights enabled in the System Access card.

  2. In the overflow menu of an application’s Print slideout, choose Generate for Design.

  3. In Notifications > System Monitor > Reports tab look for the report and select the row.

    1. NOTE: The Design Mode field must say Available.

  4. In Notifications > System Monitor > Reports overflow menu, select Design SSRS Report.

    1. NOTE: This menu option will be greyed out if you are not on the row with Available for Design Mode.

  5. This will open a new browser tab, SSRS Report Design, with the selected Report ID and Report Style.

    1. NOTE: The Status field should be Available and the User field should be blank.

  6. In the overflow menu of SSRS Report Design, select Download.

    1. NOTE: The Status field will change to Active and the User field will populate with your username.

    2. NOTE: The file will not actually download to the local workstation.

  7. In the overflow menu of SSRS Report Design, now select Design.

  8. The Report Builder’s Connect to Report Server popup will display on your workstation. Press Cancel.

  9. The report will open in Report Builder and the report can be edited.

  10. Design/Preview cycle:

    1. Make changes to your report as desired.

    2. Press Save in Report Builder.

      1. NOTE: This does not permanently change the report style - it only makes it available to the server for preview/publish purposes.

    3. In the overflow menu of SSRS Report Design, press Preview to see a Print Preview of the report style output with the changes.

    4. Repeat until desired changes are complete.

  11. In the overflow menu of SSRS Report Design, either:

    1. Press Cancel to abort all the changes.

      1. The Status field will return to Available.

    2. Press Publish to permanently save the changes to the report style and make them available to users.

      1. There will be a Yes/No confirmation dialogue.

      2. After publishing, the Status field will return to Available.

  12. As always, backup any report changes in Solution Workbench.

NOTE: This process will not work for the system report styles (e.g., “Standard - SSRS”), as Generate for Design will be greyed out for these report styles. You must first Copy Report Style using the Report Style app to create a custom report style that is a duplicate of the system report style.

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Ah well, that figures.

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I found 25.2.16 the publish doesn’t actually upload the changed RDL :grimacing: Had to save the RDL then modify the ZIP file and upload it manually. At least for OrderAck report.

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I have also found this to be true. In 2025.1, it would error so you KNEW it didn’t publish. In 2025.2, no error, but still doesn’t publish. I have not yet worked up the motivation to log my 9538729th ticket about problems with Kinetic design ssrs. Maybe tomorrow.

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It WAS working fine in 2025.2.x since .5 at least. So something broke and yeah, I haven’t made a ticket yet either as we’re in a middle of an implementation.

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Hmm, Publish worked fine for me just now in 2025.2.16.

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Just to confirm, after you published, you redownloaded the rdl, and in the newly downloaded file your changes were present?

This type of problem has plagued report customization ever since the common database was introduced, and in the past it has traced back to invalid flags in that database (which can’t be viewed/checked from the cloud), so I would not be at all surprised if the issue is environment-specific.

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I confirmed the changes by printing the report from the app’s menu (in this case Misc Packslip) and the report rendered as expected.

10

Quite possible since it’s working for others.

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Well, created CS0005452645 we’ll see what comes of it.

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I tried making a change to that report, and when attempting to Publish, the SSRS Design screen would not refresh - as if it never published. But when I reloaded the page, the Status was back to Available, and when I tried to print the report the change was there, so it did publish.

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In the test I did, I launched design ssrs on the quote form. I made changes to the query statement, field list, and canvas. Saved, previewed successfully. Published - SAID it was successful. Went and ran the quote form from the menu, changes were NOT there. Went to report style and downloaded the rdl directly - the changes were not there. I tried this twice more, each time the publish action reported success but changes were not applied.

Finally, I re-uploaded from backup via report style and repeated the test - this time the changes were there.

14

Clearly this common db stuff was a failure and needs to be reimagined.

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Hopefully Bold Reports won’t be this big of a :dumpster_fire: