RDLC Report (QC) Testing

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Posted on by SonnyPawchuk

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Hello everyone.

Can anyone explain a process to test your RDLC reports by connecting to Business Central (preferably Sandbox) from within Visual Studio?

From various Microsoft and YouTube sources, the process to customize RDLC reports seems to be:

Download the RDLC file,
Make your Changes (in Microsoft Report Viewer or Visual Studio), then
Upload your RDLC and test the results.

Debug testing seems to be skipped as a step 2b in all the research I have been able to find.

I am looking for a way to test my report while still in Visual Studio (like RDL reports using SSRS).

Is there documentation on how to do this?

Thank you,

Sonny Pawchuk.

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YUN ZHU 100,134 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi, In conclusion, using VS is OK, VS Code is not.

More details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SNxEr_axQE

But using VS Code can also open RDLC files, you can modify some fonts, functions and other information.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

ZHU

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SonnyPawchuk 116 on at

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Hello Zhu,

Yes I have seen this video and have no issue with setting up the RDLC in visual studio.

The issue is that there seems to be missing documentation or videos of actually running the RDLC from visual studio for QC testing. Everything I have seen to date skips that step, or talks about loading the RDLC right into Business Central.

Thank you,

Sonny

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Greg Enns 1,122 on at

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Hi Sonny,

Unfortunately BC does not give us the ability to test run RDLC reports inside Visual Studio like you can with SSRS reports--it never has. As you said, you must upload your changes and then run the report to see the results of your changes. Not a great process for sure--but it's what we've always had.

I recommend you vote for this idea: experience.dynamics.com/.../

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SonnyPawchuk 116 on at

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Hello Greg,

Thank you, the lack of QC process had me second guessing that I was missing an obvious step.

Sonny.

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iliahz 6 on at

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## RDLC Report Tester – a small dev tool for BC report QC

When you're developing a lot of RDLC reports for Business Central, testing them manually gets old fast — run report in BC, export XML, tweak layout, repeat.

So I built a small standalone tool that lets you preview RDLC reports locally using the XML dataset exported directly from BC (via Send to → XML Document).

**What it does:**
- Loads any `.rdlc` layout + BC-exported XML dataset
- Renders a PDF preview without touching BC
- No BC connection required — works offline
- Useful for layout tweaks, color logic, Switch() expressions, row grouping — anything visual

Built with .NET 8 / WPF + `ReportViewerCore.NETCore`. Single-file exe, no install required.

Might save someone a few round-trips to the sandbox.

👉 https://github.com/stackcollider/rdlc-report-tester

Feedback welcome — especially if you run into edge cases with the XML parsing.

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