Getting Started with Seal Report: Building Your First Data Table from SQL Server

The first time I was assigned a task to create a Seal Report for data visualization, I quickly discovered there were very few posts, articles, or practical tutorials explaining how to accomplish common tasks. The official .srex XML-based report definitions are available inside the Seal Report Designer, but in many cases the experience still feels like "figure it out on your own" . Seal Report is an open-source reporting framework for .NET that allows building dynamic reports from SQL data sources with minimal configuration. The motivation behind this post is to provide a starting point for developers who are struggling to find clear guidance on how to work efficiently with Seal Report. In this short tutorial, I will use the AdventureWorks2025 open-source backup database. Make sure the database is restored in your SQL Server instance before starting the tutorial. All examples described below are executed using Seal Report Designer (Community Edition) . This tutorial focuses on building