---
title: "Building Reports in C#"
---


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## Purpose Summary

This page describes how to build reports (e.g., invoices, letters) using Aspose.Words’ Reporting Engine.

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To build a report from a template, you can use one of the `ReportingEngine.BuildReport` overloads. The following table describes the parameters of these overloads.

| Parameter | Description |
| :- | :- |
| `document` | A template document. At runtime, this document instance is populated with a data from the specified source and becomes a ready report. |
| `dataSource` | An object providing a data to populate the specified template. The object must be of one of the following types:<br>- A traditional Mail Merge data source (see “Working with Traditional Mail Merge Data Sources” for more information)<br>- An object of a custom visible type (see “Working with Types” for more information)<br>- An `XmlDataSource` instance (see “Accessing XML Data” for more information)<br>- A `JsonDataSource` instance (see “Accessing JSON Data” for more information)<br>- A `CsvDataSource` instance (see “Accessing CSV Data” for more information) |
| `dataSourceName` | The identifier of the specified data source object within the specified template. You can omit this identifier, if the template uses the contextual object member access (see “ `REF` contextual Using Contextual Object Member Access” for more information) when dealing with the data source. |

Given a template to be populated with a data from a `DataSet` instance that is identified as “ds” within the template, you can use the following code to build the corresponding report.

{{< highlight csharp >}}
Document doc = ...   // Loading a template document.
DataSet dataSet = ... // Setting up a data set.
ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSet, “ds”);
{{< /highlight >}}

Given a visible `Person` class defined in your application and a template to be populated with a data about a single `Person` instance using the contextual object member access, you can use the following code to build the corresponding report.

{{< highlight csharp >}}
Document doc = ...   // Loading a template document.
Person person = ...   // Setting up a person data.
ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, person);
{{< /highlight >}}