DevExpress Dashboard Data Sources

The DevExpress Web Dashboard uses DashboardConfigurator as the central server-side configuration point: data sources are registered into a DataSourceInMemoryStorage, exposed to end users through the Data Source Wizard, and bound to dashboard items at runtime. WinForms and WPF have no configurator — data sources are added directly to the Dashboard object (Dashboard.DataSources.Add()), a completely different API (Rule 1).

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

• Register SQL, JSON, Object, Entity Framework, MongoDB, Excel, XPO, OLAP, Extract, or Federated data sources
• Connect a dashboard to a database and store the connection string in the project's config file
• Supply data to a DashboardObjectDataSource from in-memory .NET objects
• Set connection parameters at runtime, or switch database per user / per request
• Create a DashboardFederationDataSource (join / union / transform) or enable custom SQL
• Bind a dashboard control to data in code
• Find out why a dashboard, grid, or chart shows no data

Each of these has a different API on web and desktop. Step 1 below decides which one you get.

Before You Start — Detect the Platform, Then Ask