Documentation

Getting started and setup

Set up AL Report Creator for Business Central: your company account, extension, API key and Preview Service.

On this page

Quick start

For business customers only: register your company once, free of charge — do not register each developer separately. If your company is already registered, ask its administrator for an invitation. After registration, all additional developers are invited and receive their own API key. Each company can have unlimited developers. Connect your extension to the company account and work together with shared templates, styles and presets.

  1. Register your company account and connect the extension. Registration is free; layout operations use the credits available to your company.
  2. Open an AL workspace containing app.json and keep its symbol packages current.
  3. For preview and Dataset Viewer, install the companion Preview Service App in your Business Central development environment. AL Report Creator detects a missing or outdated version and can guide you through installation or update.
  4. Select the target launch configuration and company. The wizard can install the app automatically or open its source as a VS Code workspace for review, adjustment and manual deployment. You can choose the object number range. The app is supplied directly rather than through AppSource.
  5. Open the AL report or its layout and run ALRC: Preview Report. Save a layout change to refresh the preview.

Useful shortcuts are Alt+Shift+P for Preview Report, Alt+Shift+S for Show Dataset and Alt+Shift+L for Open Layout Externally. You can also use the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), the context menu of a suitable file or the preview toolbar. Commands in the toolbar use the report currently being previewed.

Report commands in VS Code
Report commands in VS Code · Full size

Initial setup

The wizard needs an AL workspace with app.json. Metadata comes from workspace AL files and symbol packages; keep .alpackages and directories configured in al.packageCachePath current.

The preview connection is preferably derived from an AL configuration in .vscode/launch.json. Add missing preview-specific values under al-report-creator.preview.launchOverrides. Secrets belong in VS Code SecretStorage, not in settings.json or launch.json.

Run ALRC: Manage Preview Service, choose the test instance and install automatically or from source. Assign preview users the SPO ARC PREVIEW permission set. The companion app publishes its required OData web service itself; no manual entry on the Web Services page is needed.

ALRC: Manage Preview Service

Checks the installed companion-app version and guides installation or update. Use automatic installation or open the generated AL project to inspect and deploy it yourself. The source-based workflow allows an object number range to be specified and the objects to be renumbered accordingly. Preview rendering and dataset retrieval require this app in the selected development environment.