Getting Started with Seal Report: Building Your First Data Table from SQL Server

#sealreport #opensource #analytics #sqlserver

The first time I was assigned a task to create a Seal Report for data visualization, I quickly discovered there were very few posts, articles, or practical tutorials explaining how to accomplish common tasks. The official .srex XML-based report definitions are available inside the Seal Report Designer, but in many cases the experience still feels like "figure it out on your own".

Seal Report is an open-source reporting framework for .NET that allows building dynamic reports from SQL data sources with minimal configuration.

The motivation behind this post is to provide a starting point for developers who are struggling to find clear guidance on how to work efficiently with Seal Report.

In this short tutorial, I will use the AdventureWorks2025 open-source backup database. Make sure the database is restored in your SQL Server instance before starting the tutorial.

All examples described below are executed using Seal Report Designer (Community Edition).

This tutorial focuses on building a simple working report from scratch using Seal Report Designer and is intended as a starting point for developers who are new to the tool.

Configuring Data Source

Below are the steps required to configure a data source that will later be used for data visualization:

Open Seal Report Designer
Click the New icon
In the left panel, right-click the Sources folder
Select Add a new SQL Data Source

After completing these steps, a dummy SQL data source will be created.

For simplicity, you can delete the default data sources and repositories created automatically by Seal Report, since they are not required for this tutorial. Keeping only the necessary elements makes the configuration easier to follow and avoids confusion later.

At this point, your workspace should look similar to the screenshot below.

To connect the data source to an existing database, navigate to: Sources → Data Source → Connections → connection.

After selecting connection, the contextual configuration panel becomes available on the right side.

For this tutorial, use the following settings:

Database type: MS SQLServer
Connection type: MS SQLServer (System.Data)
Connection string:

Data Source=localhost\SQLEXPRESS;
Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks2025;
Integrated Security=True;
TrustServerCertificate=True;

Once the connection string is configured, press F7 or click Check connection to verify that the connection is working correctly.

If everything is configured properly, the result should match the confirmation shown in the screenshot below.

Loading Tables and Views from the Catalog

After the database connection is established, tables and views can be loaded from the database catalog for further use in the report model.

Open Sources → Data Source → Tables, then right-click Tables and select Add Tables from Catalog.

In the popup window, enter HumanResources in the filter field and click Select all. Enable the following mapping options:

Auto create joins
Auto create table columns
Use schema name
Keep column names

These options automatically prepare the selected tables for reporting by generating joins between them and creating the required column metadata.

The result should look similar to the screenshot below.

Configuring the Metadata Model

Inside the Models folder, there is already a metadata Model element created by default. Select it and, in the contextual panel on the right side, set the following values:

Source → Data Source
Connection → connection

At the bottom of the same contextual panel, you will see the list of tables imported earlier from the catalog. Expand the HumanResources.Employee table and drag the following fields into the Drop Row Element area:

BusinessEntityID
JobTitle
BirthDate
MaritalStatus
Gender

At this stage, before previewing the result, your configuration should look similar to the screenshot below.

By clicking the Execute button, the data is loaded from the database, mapped to the metadata model, and rendered in the UI using the Razor engine.

As you can see, by default:

all columns are sortable
pagination is enabled
a global table filter is available
the maximum number of records per page can be adjusted

These features are available out of the box and do not require any additional configuration.

Skill Check

You may notice that displaying BusinessEntityID instead of a person’s full name looks awkward. As a small exercise, try adding the Person.Person table from the catalog and replacing the identifier with the FirstName, MiddleName, and LastName fields.

If everything is configured correctly, the resulting data table should look like this: