Data Source Wizard

• Nov 27, 2025
• 2 minutes to read

The Data Source Wizard enables you to configure a data source for a Report.

Use the Data Source Wizard

The Data Source Wizard allows you to do the following:

• Add a new data-bound report to your application using the Report Wizard, which includes the Data Source Wizard pages.

  

• Bind an existing report or its Detail Report band to data. To invoke the Data Source Wizard, click the report’s smart tag, expand the XtraReportBase.DataSource property’s drop-down menu, and click Add Report Data Source.

  

• Connect the Chart, Cross Tab, and Sparkline report controls to individual data sources. To invoke the Data Source Wizard, click the control’s smart tag, expand the DataSource property’s drop-down menu, and click Add Report Data Source.

  

Note

Do not include dots in the data source name (for example, Customers.Products.2014 is incorrect). The report engine uses dots to separate the data source name from query names.

Start Pages

The following pages appear when you invoke the Data Source Wizard:

• Select a Data Connection

  This wizard page specifies whether to use an existing data connection or create a new data connection.

• Select a Data Connection Type

  This wizard page allows you to select the required data connection type.

Supported Data Source Types

The wizard supports the following data source types:

• SQL Databases

  Obtains data from all major data providers (Microsoft SQL Server, XML data, Microsoft Access, Oracle, etc.).

  A list of supported SQL data sources is available in the following help topic: Supported Databases.

• Entity Framework

  Binds to a Microsoft ADO.NET Entity Framework data source.

• Object

  Connects to any data object that implements the IList, IList<T> or IEnumerable<T> interface.

• Excel File

  Obtains data from Microsoft Excel workbooks (XLS, XLSX, or XLSM files) or CSV files.

• JSON

  Connects to JSON-formatted data.

• MongoDB

  Connects to a MongoDB instance.

• XPO

  Binds to XPO data.

• Data Federation

  Retrieves data from multiple data sources.

• No Data

  Allows you to design a report that is not bound to a data source.

• Custom Connection String

  A custom connection string allows you to pass additional connection parameters and establish a connection to any SQL database.