Supported Data Sources

• Dec 16, 2019
• 4 minutes to read

DevExpress Dashboard allows you to establish a connection to various data sources such as SQL databases, Microsoft Excel workbooks, XML/CSV data files or OLAP cubes. You can also use the Entity Framework or Object data sources to supply the dashboard with data.

The following data source types are supported.

• SQL Data Source
• OLAP Data Source
• Microsoft Excel Workbooks/CSV Files
• Entity Framework Data Source
• Object Data Source
• Extract Data Source

SQL Data Source

To connect to various SQL databases, DevExpress Dashboard requires corresponding providers to be installed on the client machine or web server. The table below lists the supported data sources and the required data providers.

Relational Database System	Supported Versions	.NET Framework Data Provider	.NET Standard 2.0 Data Provider
Microsoft SQL Server	2005 or higher 2005 Express or higher Azure SQL Database	System.Data.SqlClient.dll System.Data.dll (Included in .NET Framework)	System.Data.SqlClient.dll
Microsoft Access	Access 2000 or higher Access 2007 or higher	System.Data.dll	-
Microsoft SQL Server CE	3.5, 4.0	System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll (Included in .NET Framework)	-
Oracle Database	9i or higher	Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll System.Data.OracleClient.dll Oracle.DataAccess.dll	Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll
Amazon Redshift	n/a	Npgsql.dll	Npgsql.dll
Google BigQuery	Only legacy SQL functions and operations are supported	DevExpress.DataAccess.BigQuery.dll	DevExpress.DataAccess.BigQuery.dll
Teradata	13.0 or higher	Teradata.Client.Provider.dll	Teradata.Client.Provider.dll
SAP Sybase Advantage	Advantage Database Server 9.1 or higher	Advantage.Data.Provider.dll	-
SAP Sybase ASE	Sybase Adaptive Server 12.0 or higher	Sybase.AdoNet4.AseClient.dll	-
SAP SQL Anywhere	11 or higher	Sap.Data.SQLAnywhere.dll	-
IBM DB2	9.5 or higher	IBM.Data.DB2.dll	IBM.Data.DB2.Core.dll
Firebird	1.5 or higher, Dialect 3	FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient.dll FirebirdSql.Data.Firebird.dll	FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient.dll
MySQL	4.1 or higher	MySql.Data.dll	MySql.Data.dll
Pervasive PSQL	9.x or higher	Pervasive.Data.SqlClient.dll	-
PostgreSQL	7.x or higher	Npgsql.dll	Npgsql.dll
VistaDB	4, 5	VistaDB.5.NET40.dll	-
SQLite	3.x	System.Data.SQLite.dll Microsoft.Data.SQLite	System.Data.SQLite.dll Microsoft.Data.SQLite
XML file	n/a	Built-in support	Built-in support

Use the DashboardSqlDataSource class to bind a dashboard to an SQL database.

Note

You should specify the XpoProvider parameter if you use a custom connection string to establish connection to data. Refer to the How to Specify a Custom Connection String for the SQL Data Source topic for information on how to specify this parameter.

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.

OLAP Data Source

To use the OLAP data source, DevExpress Dashboard requires Microsoft Analysis Services OLE DB and Microsoft ADOMD.NET providers to be installed on the client machine or web server. To learn more, see Data providers used for Analysis Services connections.

The following OLAP servers are supported.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services (Multi-dimensional mode)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Analysis Services (Multi-dimensional mode)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services (Multi-dimensional mode)

Note that for ASP.NET Core Dashboard control, OLAP mode supports only XML for Analysis (XMLA) with MSMDPUMP.

Use the DashboardOlapDataSource class to bind a dashboard to an OLAP cube.

Microsoft Excel Workbooks/CSV Files

The following Microsoft Excel/text formats are supported.

• XLS
• XLSX
• XLSM
• CSV

Use the DashboardExcelDataSource class to bind a dashboard to an Excel workbook.

Entity Framework Data Source

DevExpress Dashboard supports the following Entity Framework versions:

• Entity Framework 5.0 and higher.
• Entity Framework Core 1.0 and higher.

Use the DashboardEFDataSource class to bind a dashboard to an Entity Framework data source.

Note

To connect to different database types using DashboardEFDataSource, you need to install a corresponding data provider. For instance, install the System.Data.SQLite.EF6 data provider to connect to an SQLite database using Entity Framework 6.

Object Data Source

Any object that implements the IEnumerable or IListSource interface can be used as a dashboard data source.

Use the DashboardObjectDataSource class to bind a dashboard to an object data source in code.

Extract Data Source

DevExpress Dashboard supports a compressed snapshot of data from a regular data source (such as DashboardSqlDataSource, DashboardEFDataSource, DashboardObjectDataSource, etc.). This data is saved to a local file and can be updated from the original data source at any time. You can use this data source type as any regular data source.

Use the DashboardExtractDataSource class to bind a dashboard to a data extract in code.

Note

Because data within the extract is already optimized for data grouping, the time required for initial dashboard loading can be significantly reduced. Moreover, a special in-memory cache (ExtractCacheOptions) allows you to improve performance when accessing extract data.