Report components, Report Properties and Triggers, Request Page Properties and Triggers, and DataItems and their Properties and Triggers define the data flow and overall logic for processing the data. Another set of components, Data Fields, and Working Storage, are defined subordinate to the DataItems (or Request Page). These are all designed/defined in the C/SIDE Report Dataset Designer.
These components define the data elements that are made available to Visual Studio as a Dataset to be used in the layout and delivery of results to the user. In addition, Labels (text literals) for display can be defined separately from any DataItem, but also included in the Dataset passed to Visual Studio. Labels must be Common Language Specification (CLS)-compliant names, which means labels can contain only alpha, decimal, and underscore characters and must not begin with an underscore. If the report is to be used in a multi-language environment, the CaptionML label must be properly defined to support the alternate languages.
The Report Request Page displays when a report is invoked. Its purpose is to allow users to enter information to control the report. Control information entered through a Request Page may include filters, control dates, other parameters, and specifications as well as formatting or processing options to use for this report run. The Request Page appears once at the beginning of a report at runtime. The following screenshot shows a sample Request Page, the one associated with the Customer - List (Report 101):
