| Get Started > Tutorial 6: Different Ways to Connect to Data |
Connecting to a data set is required to get the data you want to show in your report. In ActiveReports Web Designer, you can use the following options to connect your report to data.
You can connect report to a shared data set based on a shared data source. A shared data source is a file in RDSX format that contains data connection information. The main advantage of using this type of connection is that it can be referenced by multiple reports.
You can define your own data set query in an embedded data set to fetch data for your report based on a shared data source, and then connect report to this data set.
A report may also use a semantic model as a basis for creating reports. In this case, once a semantic model is selected from a predefined list of models, you can select an entity for a semantic data set to provide the report data.