Register Default Data Sources

• Dec 24, 2019
• 2 minutes to read

This document describes how to provide a Web Dashboard with a set of default data sources available for end-users.

You can create the data sources at runtime. The Web Dashboard supports the following data source types:

• SQL data source
• OLAP data source
• Excel data source
• Object data source
• Entity Framework data source
• Extract data source
• JSON data source
• XPO data source
• Federated data source

After you create the data sources, use the ASPxDashboard.SetDataSourceStorage or DashboardConfigurator.SetDataSourceStorage method (the selected method depends on the used server-side API) to register them in a data source storage. You can use a predefined implementation of the in-memory storage (DataSourceInMemoryStorage) or you can implement the IDataSourceStorage interface to provide custom data source storage.

The following code snippet shows how to create the in-memory storage of data sources for the Web Designer.

Note

A complete sample project is available at https://github.com/DevExpress-Examples/how-to-create-a-web-dashboard-designer-application-t362490.

WebForm1.aspx.cs

DashboardSqlDataSource sqlDataSource = new DashboardSqlDataSource("SQL Data Source", "sqlConnection");
SelectQuery countriesQuery = SelectQueryFluentBuilder
    .AddTable("Countries")
    .SelectColumns("Country", "Latitude", "Longitude", "Year", "EnergyType", "Production", "Import")
    .Build("Countries");
sqlDataSource.Queries.Add(countriesQuery);

DashboardOlapDataSource olapDataSource = new DashboardOlapDataSource("OLAP Data Source", "olapConnection");

DataSourceInMemoryStorage dataSourceStorage = new DataSourceInMemoryStorage();
dataSourceStorage.RegisterDataSource("sqlDataSource1", sqlDataSource.SaveToXml());
dataSourceStorage.RegisterDataSource("olapDataSource1", olapDataSource.SaveToXml());
ASPxDashboard1.SetDataSourceStorage(dataSourceStorage);

WebForm1.aspx.vb

Dim sqlDataSource As New DashboardSqlDataSource("SQL Data Source", "sqlConnection")
Dim countriesQuery As SelectQuery = SelectQueryFluentBuilder.
    AddTable("Countries").
    SelectColumns("Country", "Latitude", "Longitude", "Year", "EnergyType", "Production", "Import").
    Build("Countries")
sqlDataSource.Queries.Add(countriesQuery)

Dim olapDataSource As New DashboardOlapDataSource("OLAP Data Source", "olapConnection")

Dim dataSourceStorage As New DataSourceInMemoryStorage()
dataSourceStorage.RegisterDataSource("sqlDataSource1", sqlDataSource.SaveToXml())
dataSourceStorage.RegisterDataSource("olapDataSource1", olapDataSource.SaveToXml())
ASPxDashboard1.SetDataSourceStorage(dataSourceStorage)

Protect User Data

The Web Dashboard saves user credentials used by data sources to the dashboard XML definition.

Use the boolean DashboardConfigurator.PassCredentials property to specify whether to pass this information to the client side (web browser). Set this property to false and provide connection parameters in one of the following ways to avoid any security issues:

• Add the connection string to the connectionStrings section in the Web.config file and provide the connection parameters.
• Implement the IDataSourceWizardConnectionStringsProvider interface to create a data connections provider. Pass the created provider as the ASPxDashboard.SetConnectionStringsProvider/DashboardConfigurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider method’s parameter.
• Handle the ASPxDashboard.ConfigureDataConnection/DashboardConfigurator.ConfigureDataConnection event to provide the connection parameters at runtime.