Connecting to a Data Source

• May 13, 2019
• 4 minutes to read

The DevExpress Dashboard allows you to connect to any supported data source by using either special Data Source wizards or the API provided by the DevExpress.DataAccess library.

WinForms Data Source Wizard

Web Data Source Wizard

The table below lists the data source types and describes how to create a connection for a particular platform.

Data Source Type	API	WinForms Designer	Web Dashboard
SQL Data Source	DashboardSqlDataSource	Users can specify the connection parameters in the Data Source wizard. You can also add connection strings to the application’s configuration file to provide default data connections. For more information, refer to the Connecting to SQL Databases article. Use the DashboardSqlDataSource class to create an SQL data source that is available to users.	Add a connection string to web.config to allow users to establish a connection. Refer to the ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Connections or ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Connections topic for more information. Use the DashboardSqlDataSource class to create an SQL data source that is available to users. Refer to the ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources or ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources topic for more information.
OLAP Data Source	DashboardOlapDataSource	By default, end-users can establish a connection to OLAP cubes by specifying connection parameters in the Data Source wizard. As an alternative, add required connection strings in the application’s configuration file to supply end-users with a set of default data connections. To learn more, see OLAP Data Source. Use the DashboardOlapDataSource class to create a OLAP data source available to end-users.	Add a connection string to web.config to allow end-users to establish a connection. To learn more, see the following topics: ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Connections/ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Connections. Use the DashboardOlapDataSource class to create a OLAP data source available to end-users. See ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources/ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources.
Excel Data Source	DashboardExcelDataSource	End-users can connect to an Excel workbook or CSV file using the Data Source wizard. To learn more, see Excel Data Source. Use the DashboardExcelDataSource class to create an Excel data source available to end-users.	Use the DashboardExcelDataSource class to create an Excel data source available to end-users. See ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources/ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources.
Entity Framework Data Source	DashboardEFDataSource	End-users can connect to an Entity Framework data source using the Data Source wizard. To supply the end-users with this capability, add an Entity Framework model to your project. To learn more, see Entity Framework Data Source. Use the DashboardEFDataSource class to create an Entity Framework data source available to end-users.	Use the DashboardEFDataSource class to create an Entity Framework data source available to end-users. See ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources/ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources.
Object Data Source	DashboardObjectDataSource	End-users can connect to an Object data source using the Data Source wizard. To supply the end-users with this capability, define an object data source in a separate class within a project. To learn more, see Object Data Source. Use the DashboardObjectDataSource class to create an Object data source available to end-users.	Use the DashboardObjectDataSource class to create an Object data source available to end-users. See ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources/ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources.
Extract Data Source	DashboardExtractDataSource	Users can use the Data Source wizard to create a new data extract or establish a connection to an existing data extract. See Extract Data Source for more details. Use the DashboardExtractDataSource class to create an Extract data source that is available to users.	Use the DashboardExtractDataSource class to create a data source that is available to users. Refer to the ASP.NET Web Forms Dashboard Control - Register Default Data Sources or ASP.NET MVC Dashboard Extension - Register Default Data Sources topics for more information.
Federated Data Source	DashboardFederationDataSource	Users can create the federated data source in the Data Source wizard from existing SQL Data Source queries, Excel Data Sources, and Object Data Sources. For more information, refer to the Federated Data Source. Use the DashboardFederationDataSource class to create a federated data source.	*

Note

The DevExpress Dashboard uses database servers that can be configured to use case-sensitive table/column names. For this reason, a database scheme used in dashboards is case-sensitive to prevent any problem when the product is used with such servers.