With the release of Business Central 2025 Wave 1, business central continues to enhance developer and user experience in reporting and data analysis. One such powerful addition is the new property: ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets. This feature addresses a long-standing limitation in Excel export scenarios—allowing multiple datasets to be exported into separate sheets within a single Excel workbook.

What is ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets?

The ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets property is a new setting introduced for report objects that use Excel layouts. It enables developers to bind multiple data items or datasets to different worksheets in an Excel layout file (.xlsx), making reports more organized and structured when exported.

🧩 Structured Reports
Separate sheets for different datasets make it easier for business users to navigate complex reports—such as Sales Orders on one sheet, Customer Info on another, and Totals on a summary sheet.

🛠️ Developer Control
You can name your data items and match them to sheet names in your Excel layout. This gives you more granular control and reduces the need for workarounds.

How to Use ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets

report 50100 MyMultiSheetReport
{
    UsageCategory = ReportsAndAnalysis;
    ApplicationArea = All;
    DefaultRenderingLayout = MyExcelLayout;
    ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets = false; // Global setting is to use a single sheet

    dataset
    {
        dataitem(Customer; Customer)
        {
            column(CustomerNo; "No.") { }
            column(CustomerName; Name) { }
        }
        dataitem(Vendor; Vendor)
        {
            column(VendorNo; "No.") { }
            column(VendorName; Name) { }
        }
    }

    rendering
    {
        layout(MyExcelLayout)
        {
            Type = Excel;
            ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets = true; // Override for this specific layout
        }
    }
}

In this example, even though the global ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets property for the report is set to false, the MyExcelLayout will render the output with two separate worksheets:

• Data_Customer containing the customer data.
• Data_Vendor containing the vendor data.

If the ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets property within the MyExcelLayout definition was set to false (or not specified), both datasets would be combined into a single “Data” sheet in the Excel output.

The enhancement of the ExcelLayoutMultipleDataSheets property in Business Central Wave 1 2025 offers developers greater flexibility and control over Excel report layouts. By enabling the creation of multi-sheet Excel files at the layout level, you can deliver more user-friendly and better-organized reports, ultimately empowering your users to gain deeper insights from their Business Central data.

Stay tuned for more ….