Report caption is usually set to the caption of the report menu item, e.g. Customer account statement. Sometimes, the report menu item caption ‘got lost’ in the report execution pipeline and the technical report name (i.e. name of the report in AOT) becomes visible to end users instead, e.g. PurchPurchaseOrder.Report.

Report caption is used by Docentric in couple of places:

• As a standard placeholder @REPORTCAPTION@ available to use in print destination settings, e.g. as the output filename and in the email body.
• When a report is saved to Print archive, the report caption is written into the Description field and also used as output filename when previewed/downloaded.
• When a report is open in Docentric viewer and then downloaded, the report caption is used as the output filename.
• When a report is saved to Email sending status, the report caption is written into the Description field.

It would be great if we could change Report caption to a more meaningful description, using also dynamic information such as Customer account number or Invoice ID.

Setting up Report caption

In order to change a report caption you will need to insert the wanted SSRS report design in Docentric report setup, if it’s not already inserted. Learn how >>

Afterwards, open the detail form view while this report is selected and edit the Report caption field in the General tab. You can also use placeholders in this field to make the report caption dynamic, but of course, you need to be aware what placeholders are at your disposal at all.

Currently (in the version 3.3.0), Docentric doesn’t provide UI for picking them from a list of available placeholders in Docentric report setup directly (you can expect this feature delivered in one of the next releases), but you can check the Fields dropdown list in the email body editor from the Email print destination settings for this report.

If you want to use custom placeholders you don’t see in this list, they can be added programmatically. Learn how >>

The use of Report caption in Print archive and Docentric viewer

Let’s say that we set the report caption to CAS {CustAccount}. The next time when we print the Customer account statement report, e.g. for the US-001 customer to Docentric Screen, and then download the file from Docentric viewer, the filename will be CAS US-001.pdf.

Furthermore, if we print the report to Docentric File and save it to Print archive at the same time, setting up the @REPORTCAPTION@.pdf as the output filename, the file named as CAS US-001.pdf will be send for download in browser. Additionally, in Print archive we will also find the Description field of the archived report set to CAS US-001.

Report caption can also be set in X++ code, in the report’s custom DSP class. This can be the case if you need to change it depending on some conditions.

Learn on how to change report run settings in DSP classes >>

The use of Report caption in Email sending status

In D365FO reports are emailed synchronously, i.e. in process, which means that D365FO will wait for a response from the outgoing mail server. In case of the failure we will only get the error message without a possibility to resend the failed email. With Docentric AX Free Edition we can set up reports to be saved to the built-in outgoing email table instead (Email sending status), where we can monitor and resend emails.

When we configure Report caption to use invoice specific placeholders, we will see it with the resolved placeholders in the Description column in Email sending status after outgoing emails are created. This way we will be able to search outgoing emails not only by the report type (e.g. SalesInvoice.Report) but also by some key report attributes, e.g. Customer account number or Invoice ID.