The HESA (UK) reporting process requires comprehensive information from multi-level child records to be exported in XML format. In version 1.7, significant enhancements have been introduced to support this requirement. 

These include:

1. Ability to generate reports in XML format
2. Capability to handle multi-level sub-queries, allowing reporting across up to five levels of child relationships. 
   1. These improvements is currently available for reporting with XML format only.

In 1098-T positioned reporting, a key requirement is maintaining a running number across different sections of the report, such as Header, Body, and Footer. The running number starts in the Header and continues sequentially through the Body and Footer.

This functionality can be achieved using the existing logic by leveraging the data holder generation feature:

1. Instead of mapping reporting elements or fields directly to Salesforce objects and fields, they are mapped to the data holder object and fields. 
2. The Aggregation/Group By Field feature is used to extract values from Salesforce fields and populate them into corresponding fields in the data holder. 
3. A custom flow or Apex code is then introduced to populate the running number in the data holder records. Ultimately, the data stored in the data holder object is utilized for reporting automation.

However, this method has a limitation: the batch size for the reporting scheduler job must be set to 1 to ensure that all sections are processed sequentially. While this guarantees correct sequencing, it significantly increases the time required to complete the reporting process.

To address this limitation, we introduced an enhancement that allows the scheduler batch size and interval (in minutes) to be configured directly in the reporting export record, rather than relying on values in the custom setting. This improvement provides greater flexibility, enabling different batch sizes and intervals to be specified for each reporting export, thereby optimizing performance without compromising accuracy.

As part of the enhancements, the scheduled job that was introduced in v1.6 to run every 5 minutes will be deprecated. Instead, the scheduler will now be initiated and executed automatically based on the configuration specified in the reporting export record. This change ensures that the scheduling process is more dynamic and adaptable to individual reporting requirements, eliminating the need for a fixed interval job.