Overriding SysLastValue Dynamics AX 3.0

This is an old blog entry from my old blog.

Today I solved a problem, that has long puzzled me.

From Axapta 3.0 (or was it 2.5 can't quite remember) it became best pratice to wrap reports in runbase-report classes.

For a long time it has irritated me, that if you called your report class from something else than the menu, you were having trouble overriding syslastvalue, without clearing all saved last value completely.

Example:
You have a report called from a runbasereport class.For the class you naturally have a output menuitem, that is attached to the menu. So when you call this report, and make selections in the ranges of the query of the report, they are shown in the report dialog, and saved, so that the next time you call your report, the last used selections is being restored for you in the dialog for reuse.

However sometime you experience, that the report can be called from BOTH the menu and somewhere else like a form.
When you call the report from a form, it is customary to synchronize certain ranges in the query of the report with values found on the particular record the cursor has been placed in the form.

Then what about syslastvalue in this case. Normally they would be saved as the last used values destroying the values saved when the report was called from the menu.

So how do we make the report function normally saving queryvalues etc as syslastvalues when calling it from the menu, and avoid doing so when calling the report from e.g. a form.

The solution is actually fairly simple, and does not require a whole lot of work:

If you make an extra output menuitem for your report class, which includes a parameter indicating that this has NOT been called from the menu, by putting a value in e.g. the PARM property and test for this it is quite easy.

First you need a parameter method to set and return a flag indicating if or if not the class has been called from the menu:

boolean calledromMenu(boolean _calledFromMenu = calledFromMenu)
{
    calledFromMenu = _calledFromMenu;
    return calledFromMenu;
}

Of course you must have a class member of the boolean type called calledFromMenu.

In your

main

method in the runbasereport class you would have:

MyRunBaseReportObject myRunBaseReportObject;

myRunBaseReportObjec = new myRunBaseReportObject();
if (_args.parm() != '')
{
    myRunBaseReportObject.calledFromMenu(false);
}
else
{
    myRunBaseReportObject.calledFromMenu(true);
}
if (myRunBaseReportObject.prompt())
{
    myRunBaseReportObject.run();
}

The

getLast

method on your wrapper class (extending RunBaseReport) must be overwritten:
public void getLast()
{
    getLastCalled = true;
    inGetSaveLast = true;
    if (this.calledFromMenu()) // Do not save last value if not called from menu
    {
        xSysLastValue::getLast(this);
    }
    else
    {
        this.initParmDefault();
    }
    inGetSaveLast = false;
}


In this case the calledFromMenu() method returns either true or false according to the parameter passed from the menuitem, which indicates that the report is called from the menu.

If it has been called from the menu, we want everything to function as normal, so we get the syslastvalues. Otherwise, we call initParmDefault to setup report with query and queryRun objects etc.

It is important that super() is NOT called.

The other method to overwrite is:

public void saveLast()
{
    if (this.calledFromMenu()) // Only save last value if called from menu
    {
        inGetSaveLast = true;
        xSysLastValue::saveLast(this);
        inGetSaveLast = false;
    }
}

Actually the overwriting this method with the above code, just makes saving syslastvalues dependant on the calledFromMenu, thus NOT saving anything if the report was not called from the menu.

That's it. Now your report will function as normally saving syslastvalues when called from the menu, but not doing so when you call it using the other menuitem which indicates a call from somewhere else than the menu.