## Linking report sets and catalogs

A report set can be linked with a catalog in JReport. The benefits of a linked catalog compared to a copied catalog are:

- There is no need to also copy the wanted catalog to the destination directory when saving the report set to a different location.
- When the report set and its linked catalog are not in the same directory, the report set can still run with the catalog.
- When the linked catalog is updated, the report set using the catalog can run with the updated version. However, the copied catalog cannot be updated if its original catalog is updated since they are two independent versions.

When directly running a report set, the linked catalog has higher priority than the catalog specified in the same folder as the report set (without linked catalog, the report set will run within the selected catalog in the same folder). As for Advanced Run and Schedule, the default selected catalog is the linked catalog if there is one, however, you can change it by the provided option Select Another Catalog.

### Setting linked catalog

Linked catalog can be set at server level, folder level, and report set level as follows:

- To set linked catalog at server level (this can only be done by administrators):
  1. Go to the JReport Administration page, and click Configuration on the system toolbar.
  2. Click the Advanced tab, check Enable Linked Catalog, then click the Select Another Catalog link to specify the catalog which will be used as the linked catalog at server level.
  3. Click OK to save the change.
  4. Restart JReport Enterprise Server to make the settings take effect.
- To set linked catalog at folder/report set level, go to the Properties dialog of the folder/report set, check Enable Linked Catalog, then specify the linked catalog as required.
  - Use Specified - If checked, you can specify a linked catalog which can be any catalog in the server resource tree to the folder/report set.
  - Use Inherited - If a linked catalog has been specified on the parent level of the folder/report set, you can use the parent-level linked catalog as the linked catalog of the folder/report set. For the My Reports and Public Reports folders, the parent level is the server level; for the other folders or report sets, the parent level is the parent folder.

Notes:

- If a schedule task has been submitted and then the linked catalog in use is modified, the task will still use the previous catalog until the task information is updated.
- When running a report set in JReport Web, you can also save the original catalog as a linked catalog when saving the DHTML report set.
- For API usage about linked catalog, see the JReport Enterprise Server Javadoc in `<install_root>\help\server\en\api`.