A report item is a visual element in the report design. Typically, a report developer uses BIRT Report Designer to add a report item to the design by dragging an item from the palette to the layout editor. Sometimes a reporting application must change the properties of certain report items in the design before running the report. The application uses methods on the ReportDesignHandle class to access a report item either by name or from a list of items in a slot in a container report item. These methods return a DesignElementHandle object. All report items derive from this class.

A slot is a logical component of a container report item. A slot holds zero or more members of the appropriate report item type. For example, a table element has four slots: Header, Detail, Footer, and Groups. Each of these slots is a container for further slots. The Header, Detail, and Footer slots all contain elements of type RowHandle. RowHandle has a Cell slot that contains all the cells in the row. The Outline view in BIRT Report Designer provides a visual representation of the slots in an individual report item.