Is there a way to either update a report once the query is changed or to use an existing report to create a template?
HOW TO CONNECT YOUR REPORT TEMPLATE TO A DIFFERENT DATA SOURCE
The basics…
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Open your report in editing-mode.
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Make sure you have a pane at the right with information about the currently selected object. If you don’t have this pane, click the “View” entry in the Report Designer menu, and click on “Properties” to turn on the Properties pane.
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Click on the gray field outside the report field. To be sure you are in the right place, click on the General tab, and be sure that the properties you’re looking at are for the object named “Report”. If you are, switch back to the “Data” tab.
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The value of “content type” is probably SQL-command (but it might be a “query”) and the corresponding value in “content” would be an SQL-command (but it might be the name of an existing query in your database). Change the “content type” to query or table, whichever is your type of source.
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In “content” select your query or table and click on a random part of your report.
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Save the changes you have made.
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The report will now reflect changes you make, but, note, if you add a field to your table or query you still have to add it to the report ‘manually’.
Some fine tuning…
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If the data source ffield/column names have changed from the names in the original data source used in your report, you might need to ‘re-connect’ each individual report-template text box to the appropriate field/column name. For example if you have a field called ‘last_name’, and in the ‘new’ query (in your updated data source) the field is called ‘lastname’, you will need to ‘re-connect’ the field by using the properties of the container text box.
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To do this, click on the field (above), and then click on the data tab in the properties pane (on right side), then choose the correct field name from the data field drop down menu.
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If the expected data for specific fields do not appear in the final report, you might additionally need to re-connect these specific report field text-boxes to their correct data-fields (even if their names do not change). This is because switching the report data source (as in steps 4 & 5 above) does sometimes ‘disconnect’ text-box fields in the report document from the underlying data column.