Bind a Report to Data

The main purpose of the Report Designer is to create and customise data-aware reports which take data from an external data source (many types of which are supported), to which the report is bound, with controls in the report linked to data fields in the data source.

To bind a report to data, proceed as follows:

• To bind the report to data, click its Smart tag. In the displayed actions list, expand the Data Source dropdown menu and click Add New DataSource.

  

• A window appears allowing a name to be defined for the dataset being created.

  

• Click Next. On the next page, specify the database to be used. If it is absent in the dropdown menu containing existing connections, click New Connection to display the Data Link Properties window.

  

  In Provider tab of this window, choose a data provider (the database). Then switch to the Connection tab to specify the data source. Click OK, then Next.

  

• The next page allows tables to be selected and obtained from the database. Select the required table and click Finish.

  

  Note:
  If several tables are chosen, the Report Designer creates a data relationship between them (if possible), which is used to create summary-detail reports.

• After performing the steps above the report is now bound to the data source and the report's Data Source, Data Member and Data Adapter properties are set.

  

  After binding a report to a data source, each data-aware report control must be bound to a data field from that source. Refer to Display Values from a Database (Bind Report Elements to Data) for further information.