7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising: determining that the report component associated with the layout component reference is not stored locally.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising: determining that the report component associated with the layout component reference is not stored locally. 8. The method of claim 7 , wherein responsive to a determination that the layout component is not stored locally, the method further comprises: opening a remote connection; obtaining the external report specification via the remote connection; and locating the report component in the external report specification.