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 a