Register Default Data Connections

• Aug 01, 2019
• 2 minutes to read

This document describes how to provide a Web Dashboard with a set of predefined data connections. These connections are displayed for end-users in the Dashboard Data Source Wizard when creating new data sources.

You can add a predefined connection in the following ways:

• Add a connection string specifying a valid connection to the required database to the project’s appsetings.json file as shown below. Note that the connection string should contain the XpoProvider parameter that corresponds to the database type.

  JSON

  {
    "ConnectionStrings": {
      "MS SQL Connection": "XpoProvider=MSSqlServer; data source=localhost; initial catalog=Northwind; Integrated Security=SSPI; Persist Security Info=True;",
      "XML Connection": "XpoProvider=InMemoryDataStore;Read Only=true;Data Source=Data\\nwind.xml;"
    }
  }
  

  After defining connection strings, create the DashboardConnectionStringsProvider instance and pass it to the DashboardConfigurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider method.

  C#

  using DevExpress.DashboardWeb;
  // ...
  public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services) {
              services
                  // ...
                  .AddDefaultDashboardController(configurator => {
                      configurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider(new DashboardConnectionStringsProvider(Configuration));
                  });
              // ...
          }
  

  To learn how to specify the XpoProvider parameter, see How to Specify a Custom Connection String for the SQL Data Source.

• Specify a data connection provider using the DashboardConfigurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider method.

  This example shows how to implement a custom connection strings provider by implementing the IDataSourceWizardConnectionStringsProvider interface:

  C#

  using DevExpress.DataAccess.ConnectionParameters;
  using DevExpress.DataAccess.Native;
  using DevExpress.DataAccess.Web;
  // ...
  
      public class MyDataSourceWizardConnectionStringsProvider : IDataSourceWizardConnectionStringsProvider {
          public Dictionary<string, string> GetConnectionDescriptions() {
              Dictionary<string, string> connections = new Dictionary<string, string>();
  
              // Customize the loaded connections list.  
              connections.Remove("LocalSqlServer");
              connections.Add("msSqlConnection", "MS SQL Connection");
              connections.Add("xmlConnection", "XML Connection");
              return connections;
          }
  
          public DataConnectionParametersBase GetDataConnectionParameters(string name) {
              // Return custom connection parameters for the custom connection.
              if (name == "msSqlConnection") {
                  return new MsSqlConnectionParameters("localhost", "Northwind", "", "", MsSqlAuthorizationType.Windows);
              } else if (name == "xmlConnection") {                
                  return new XmlFileConnectionParameters("C:\\Users\\Public\\Documents\\DevExpress Demos 18.2\\Components\\Data\\nwind.xml");
              }
              return AppConfigHelper.LoadConnectionParameters(name);
          }
      }
  

  After implementing a custom connection strings provider, pass this class’s instance to the DashboardConfigurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider method:

  C#

  using DevExpress.DashboardWeb;
  // ...
  public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services) {
              services
                  // ...
                  .AddDefaultDashboardController(configurator => {
                      configurator.SetConnectionStringsProvider(new MyDataSourceWizardConnectionStringsProvider());
                  });
              // ...
          }