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Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested Answer

How do I enable external images in a Custom Report Layout?

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Posted on by 183

What is the option to toggle on/off "allow external images" in the Power Bi Report Builder software?

I have a trusted external image that I would like to introduce into a RDL file.
I inserted the image object which points to an external URL.

When I upload the modified custom report layout RDL file to business central and clicked on the preview button, I am met with an error message:

2023_2D00_01_2D00_16-11_5F00_52_5F00_06_2D00_Wiise-_2D00_-Wiise-and-1-more-page-_2D00_-Work-_2D00_-Microsoft_0B20_-Edge.png

This indicates that I have not found the correct setting or method to configure this RDL report.

Attempt done: Result:
Right click on image object, "Image Properties..." then on the "Use this image" field, entered the URL directly.

Rendering output for the report failed and the following error occurred: Report '' contains external images. The EnableExternalImages property has not been set for this report.

Right click on the grey space outside the report page, then on "Report Properties" added a name variable called EnableExternalImages with the Value set to true.

Rendering output for the report failed and the following error occurred: Report '' contains external images. The EnableExternalImages property has not been set for this report.

Right click on the custom report layout in Windows Explorer and opened it as NotePad to insert EnableExternalImages = true line.

Rendering output for the report failed and the following error occurred: Report '' contains external images. The EnableExternalImages property has not been set for this report.

(After each attempt above, the RDL is uploaded to Business Central on a Sandbox environment then preview button is clicked.)

Many sites mentioned that I need to install Visual Studio but is unclear what specific installation workload to install as well as where to go after the workload has been installed. My attempt into digging deeper said that I needed to use SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) but still did not receive any sufficient documentation as to how to insert this EnableExternalImages variable with the true value for it.

Any help is much appreciated.

  • Suggested answer
    YUN ZHU Profile Picture
    103,085 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

    Hi, you need to enable the following property in your report object.

    pastedimage1673836266875v1.png

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/properties/devenv-enableexternalimages-property

    Or you can consider importing picture from URL to BC first.

    https://yzhums.com/17574/

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks.

    ZHU

  • Joseph.Candava Profile Picture
    183 on at

    Thanks for your response.

    If I wanted to enable this to an existing report for example a Posted Sales Shipment report, a Sales Order Archive report, or a Posted Sales Invoice report, what is the proper AL syntax to call them instead of introducing a new report name that does not exist in Business Central?

  • Suggested answer
    YUN ZHU Profile Picture
    103,085 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

    Unfortunately, as far as I know there is currently no support for modifying this property in ReportExtension. So it is not possible to modify this property for existing reports in SaaS.

    pastedimage1673921794570v1.png

    Hope this helps.

    Thanks

    ZHU

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