To access data for a BIRT report, you create and use a BIRT data source. A BIRT data source is an object that contains the information to connect to an underlying data source. Each type of data source requires different connection information. Use Data Explorer, shown in Figure 4‑1, to create and manage BIRT data sources.

You can create as many data sources as is necessary for a report. The data sources can be of different types. For example, a report can use data from a database and data from a flat file repository.

BIRT Report Designer provides default names that begin with Data Source for each data source in a report. For example, if you create three data sources, the default names are Data Source, Data Source1, and Data Source2. Specify descriptive names, such as SalesDB or BooksXml, so that you can identify easily the type or name of the data source.