What is the difference between "Data Source" and "Table" in reports?

[Aradhana6]

What is the difference between "Data Source" and "Table" in reports?

[Pooja Mallikarj · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Data Source are also referred as Report sources.

Report sources are predefined data sets for creating reports.

Use report sources for reports containing the same conditions, so you do not have to define the conditions more than once. You can also use report sources to implement the same definitions across your organisation.

A report source always consists of a table and a number of conditions.

When you create a new report, you can either use a report source or select a table. 

It is recommended to use a Data Source instead of the table while building a report.

Data Source one can create a standard set of conditions for querying a particular table that can be used in other reports.

Mark correct/helpful if it helps for you

Regards,

Pooja

[leboute]

Is it possible to somehow "materialize" a report source so it behaves like a materialized view in Oracle terminology, and define that it refreshes with a given frequency (ex: 1 day, or every 2 hours, etc...) and then expose this materialized, column-filtered, and with pre-built query terms to end users want to display this data in the way they prefer?

This would one obviously great feature, as would allow report admins to create such mirrored data excerpts and having generic report consumers going to them, instead of needing to grant the report audience access to the very transactional tables. Record and columns security could be redefined at data source level by the report admin role, and be different to base tables security. Is there something like that on the product?