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Connection Editor Reference

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The Connection Editor is used to connect your report template to a data source. With the Connection Editor you can create, edit and delete data source connections.

Accessing the Connection Editor​

In the Fluent Designer Manager tab of your Office ribbon, find the Data Sources button.

Data Sources Button: Connection Editor and Recent Data Sources Menu​

Clicking the "Data Sources" button allows you to do the following:

  • Data Sources -- this will open the Data Source Connection Editor
  • Recent -- click on any of the recently used data sources to immediately connect your template to that data source. If the data source you want is not listed here, open the Data Source Connection Editor.

Connection Editor​

New Tab​

Click on a data source type to create a new data source connection. Once created in one template, the data source connection will be available to other templates (but you must still select the data source connection in a new template).

If the desired data source type is not shown in the New tab, you may not have an ADO.NET connector installed for that data source type. For example, a PostgreSQL data source requires the Npgsql ADO.NET connector be installed (for more details see How Do I Connect to a PostgreSQL Data Source?). Only then will the PostgreSQL data source type appear in the New tab.

Connections Tab​

Click on the Connections tab to browse through previously connected data sources. Initially, your Active and Recent Inactive lists will be blank. After you connect one data source, it will appear here for easy access in all your report templates.

Connect to or disconnect from a data source by clicking on the Connect/Disconnect button (the button's label changes depending on whether the selected data source is connected). The data source will move from the Active to the Recent Inactive lists, and vice versa.

You can organize the lists by using the buttons below the tab to move data sources up and down, or delete a data source.

Manager Data Sources Tab​

The Manager Data Sources tab lets you connect your template directly to data sources that are already configured in your Fluent Manager workspaces, without having to re-enter connection details on the Designer machine.

Signing in to Fluent Manager​

The first time you open the Manager Data Sources tab in a session, you will be prompted to sign in to Fluent Manager. Once signed in, the tab uses your stored credentials/token to fetch the list of workspaces and data sources you have access to. For more information on getting set up with Fluent Manager, see the Fluent Manager Getting Started guide.

Selecting a Workspace​

At the top of the Manager Data Sources tab is a Workspace drop-down. Until you choose a workspace, a "Please select a workspace" prompt is displayed in place of the data source list.

When you select a workspace from the drop-down, the tree below is populated with all data sources that have been configured for that workspace in Fluent Manager. Each data source is shown with an icon for its type:

  • SQL -- relational/SQL Server data sources
  • XML -- XML data sources
  • JSON -- JSON data sources
  • ODATA -- OData data sources

Manager Connection Panel​

When you click on a data source in the tree, the Details Pane on the right is replaced by the Manager Connection Panel for the selected Manager data source. The panel lists every endpoint that has been configured for that data source in Fluent Manager, grouped into two lists:

  • Connection Strings -- connection strings stored against the data source in the Manager workspace. Selecting one will connect the template using that connection string.
  • Data Files -- data files (e.g. XML/JSON files) that have been uploaded to the Manager workspace for that data source. Selecting one will connect the template using that file.

You can only have one item selected at a time -- selecting a connection string clears any selected file, and vice versa.

Connecting and Disconnecting​

With an item selected in the Manager Connection Panel, use the standard Connect / Disconnect buttons at the bottom of the Connection Editor to attach the template to that Manager data source or detach from it. Successfully connected items are marked in the list with a check mark (✓) so you can see at a glance which connection strings or files are already in use.

The list of successfully connected items is remembered per workspace + data source for the duration of the Designer session, so reopening the Connection Editor or switching workspaces and back will continue to show your previously connected items as connected.

If a Manager-hosted data source that the template was previously connected to no longer exists in the workspace (for example, it was renamed or deleted in Manager), Fluent Designer will display a warning dialog when the template is opened.

Details Pane​

When you click on a data source type in the New tab, the Details Pane shows fields for you to fill in (and save) the details of that data source such as:

  • Name (nickname)
  • Provider, server, database location
  • Credentials (login or Windows Identity)
  • Read in Metadata and Connection String (for SQL-type data sources)
  • Encoding (different types of encoding can be typed in)

You can also:

  • Connect and add multiple data sources
  • Update the details for your data sources
  • Create a Data Set
  • Test the connection
  • When you click on "Close", your data source details will be saved and accessible through the Connections tab.

Nickname​

Give the data source connection a name, which can later be used to connect individual Tags to different data sources within the same report template.

Credentials​

When these fields appear, indicate whether to use your Windows identity to login to the data source, or a data-source-specific username and password.

Display Tables​

User - read in only the metadata for the user tables

User Owned - not used

User & System - read in metadata for both user and system tables

Read In Metadata and Use Connection String​

Check on "Read in metadata" to read in additional information from the database, primarily the descriptions of tables, views, and the primary key - foreign key relationships of table columns. This is used in the SQL Wizard to facilitate the automatic joining of different tables in the database. Hence this should usually be left enabled.

Check on "Use Connection String" to manually enter the data source connection string into the "Connection String" field.

Root Directory​

The Root Directory is optional. This is the default directory for any Import Tag select statements where the requested file in the Query Pane does not have an absolute (or full) pathname.

If left blank, Fluent Designer will use the directory where the data source file is located; if the data source is not a file it will use the directory where the template is located.

If set, and an Import Tag refers to a relative pathname, e.g. "image.png", in the Query Pane, the Root Directory is prepended to the relative pathname to create an absolute pathname, e.g. "C:\Temp\image.png". When importing a file on disc, the full pathname of the file is required.

Data Sets​

Click on the "Data Sets" button to bring up the Data Sets interface, which allows you to create, edit and delete data sets. For more details see this article about [data sets].

Vendor-specific Data Source Instructions​

See the Data Sources Reference for instructions to connect to every Fluent-supported data source.