In our upcoming release (yeah, I know, we have a lot of new stuff coming your way), we'll introduce a full-featured Data Source Wizard for our ASP.NET Report Designer - easily accessible from the Report Designer's main menu.
Like its WinForms counterpart, the ASP.NET Data Source Wizard allows users to construct complex queries - with support for joins, query parameters, data source level filtering and the ability to bind to stored procedures with specified parameters. Users can either write a SQL query manually or construct it visually via our ASP.NET Query Builder.
As you might expect, our Query Builder generates a SQL string, which can be further edited when necessary.
To avoid possible security issues, the new query builder cannot use connection strings specified in the application’s Web.config file by default. You can pre-define a set of connection strings for your end-users by implementing a custom connection strings provider. Alternatively, you can explicitly permit the query builder to use connection strings from Web.config (you know the risks, so think through your implementation carefully).
ASP.NET Filter Editor
Among other usability enhancements we'll ship in this release is the debut of the DevExpress ASP.NET Filter Editor. In previous versions, in order to filter report data, users had to manually enter the required filter string. With this update, your users can launch the Filter Editor by clicking the ellipsis button on the report’s Filter String property - available in the Data properties group and the report’s Actions list.
The Filter Editor's UI is straightforward and simplifies the construction of complex filtering conditions. To improve readability, the Filter Editor arranges sub-expressions into groups based on logical operators. Thus, the entire expression is presented as a tree, where each node can be edited separately.
So what do you think? Do you see yourself using the Data Source Wizard and Filter Editor?