Pages can be imported from or linked to other reports in your organization. This is accessed from the Pages > Current page > Import or link menu item.

Importing

When a page imports another report all the widgets are copied from the source report at design-time – i.e. at the point the report author presses the “Import” button. This gives a quick and easy way to create copies of reports or to allow many contributors to a single report. Once widgets have been imported they are no longer linked to the source report and can be edited or deleted as necessary.

Linking

When a page is linked to another report all the widgets from the source report are imported at runtime – i.e. when the report is viewed. Using this technique means that widgets still “belong” to the source report and cannot be edited directly in the target page. This gives a way of combining many reports into one whilst sharing the responsibility for updating those reports amongst a number of people. This does impose a slight performance penalty when the report is viewed since more than one design file has to be downloaded but this is normally insignificant.

Whether importing or linking it is important that the source and target reports share data sources – for example an InstantAtlas Data Catalog. Combining reports that have different core layers or joined data will give unpredictable (and usually unwanted) results.