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Understanding the Data Source Control

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The Data Source control is best understood as the reporting engine behind data access pages, PivotTable List controls, and data-bound Chart controls. The Data Source control has no visual representation. It is designed to manage the connection to the underlying data source and deliver records to be displayed by other controls on a Web page.

The Data Source control relies on ADO for connections to relational data sources such as Microsoft® Access, Microsoft® SQL Server™, or Oracle databases. Although the Data Source control can provide data to the PivotTable List control, the Data Source control cannot be bound to multidimensional data sources; transformations of relational data to multidimensional data are managed by the PivotTable Service.

Note   If you are creating a PivotTable list from a relational data source, the PivotTable Service is used to create a multidimensional data cube from the relational data bound to the Data Source control. Then, this data cube is used by the PivotTable List control. For multidimensional data sources, the PivotTable List control relies upon an OLE DB for online analytical processing (OLAP) provider. The PivotTable Service is the OLE DB for OLAP provider for Microsoft SQL Server OLAP Services.

You can use the Data Source control to do the following:

  • Associate a DataSourceControl object with a database connection.

  • Add a record (row) source (table, view, stored procedure, or SQL statement) to a Data Source control.

  • Provide an ADO recordset to data-consuming objects on a Web page. These objects include the Microsoft® Internet Explorer built-in controls that can be data bound, such as the TEXT or SELECT control, and all of the other Office Web Component controls.

  • Build SQL commands to request data from relational data sources.

  • Construct hierarchical (shaped) Recordset objects from one or more data providers by using the services of the Microsoft Data Shaping Service for OLE DB service provider.

  • Persist data in an Office Web Component to a file or load data from a file to an Office Web Component.

    Note   Although you can work directly with the Data Source control, in many cases you are not required to. For example, when you create an Access data access page and add fields to the page by dragging them from the field list, Access automatically adds a properly configured Data Source control to the page.

See Also

Using Web Technologies with Office XP | Understanding the Chart Control | Understanding the PivotTable List Control