Creative report plagiarism and patterns
Just as we discussed in the chapter on pages, when we want to create a new report of a certain type that we haven't done recently (or at all), it's a good idea to find another report that is similar in all important aspects, and study it. We should also check whether there is a NAV Pattern defined for an applicable category of report. At the minimum, in both of these investigations, we will learn how the developers of NAV solved a data flow or totaling or filtering challenge. In the best case scenario, we will find a model that we can follow closely, respectfully plagiarizing (copying) a working solution, thus saving ourselves much time and effort.
Often, it is useful to look at two or three of the standard NAV reports for similar functions to see how they are constructed. There is no sense in reinventing the design for a report of a particular type, when someone else has already invented a version of it. Not only this, but they have...
