Templates vs Layout Component References

Often I have been asked if it is a best practice to create report templates and have developers use them for basing their reports. But instead I would suggest going with layout component references and using them in reports. Layout Component References offer a lot of advantages over the traditional Template approach. The references can be used as a base and can be over-ridden for particular report requirements. And any time there is a change to the layout component the reports will all reflect the changes unless the object has been over-ridden. This saves developers a lot of time making the changes across reports.

In my next article, I will touch base on creating and using Layout Component Objects.