Concept: Data Sources, Data Sets, and Tables
When creating a report design, you must provide a description of the report's structure
and some sample data. Together, these are known as the design's data source.
If you wish to apply your design to a custom Workday report,
the report must be enabled as a web service. The
Enable as Web
Service
option is only available on Advanced
custom
reports.You use the Report Designer
Data Source
wizard to retrieve the
report's structure in the form of its XML Schema and sample data in the form of an XML
file.Report Designer displays the data structure of the source Workday report as
Data Sets
. Each data set displays the fields that were
defined for a business object in the report.A Workday report can contain fields from secondary business objects that are related to the
primary business object. Report Designer displays fields from any secondary business
objects as additional data sets. A report can also contain individual fields that occur
multiple times. Report Designer displays these fields as additional data sets too.
In Report Designer, you use tables to present the data taken from a Workday report. You
can create tables by dragging whole data sets into your report design. Each row in the
report has a corresponding column in the table.
It is best practice, when possible, to base your report design on a single table or
grid.