Getting started with dotnet Report builder is very easy and quick.

Here are the steps described in detail:

Step 1: Create an online account and Data Connection

Even though dotnet Report Builder runs all data queries and connections locally in your environment, the API Service it uses is hosted on the cloud, and you need to start with an online account. This can easily be transferred to run on-prem on your local environment later if you decide to upgrade to the Enterprise version. Creating the online account is absolutely free and you don’t need to provide a lot of information or a credit card.

However, you do need the API keys provided in the online account to connect to the service, so head over to the signup page, and create an account and log in. You would also need to add a “Data Connection” for each database you would like to use to build reports, so add one by clicking on “Setup Database”.

Step 2: Install the nuget package locally in your Visual Studio Project

The next thing to do is open up Visual Studio and either start up a new project or open an existing one, and install the dotnet Report NuGet Package. You should note that dotnet Report adds all the Controller, Views and javascript files directly in to your application.

There are 4 different versions of the nuget package:

• The default NuGet package dotnetreport is for .NET 6.
• For .Net Core 3.1, you need to use and install dotnetreport.core.
• For MVC, you need to install dotnetreport.mvc. 
• Web Forms also has it’s own nuget package dotnetreport.aspx.

So install the right nuget package based on your application and which version of .Net you are using to code. The installation process is fairly similar for all versions.

Step 3: Enter your API Keys from the online portal in your web.confg for MVC and in appSettings.json for .NET 6 or core.

The next thing after the nuget package is installed is to setup your API keys from the online portal in your application. To do that, you have to copy some settings in to your web.config file. The nuget package installation will add the following to your appSettings:

<add key="dotNetReport.accountApiToken" value="Your Public Account Api Token" />
<add key="dotNetReport.dataconnectApiToken" value="Your Data Connect Api Token" />
<add key="dotNetReport.privateApiToken" value="Your Private Account Api Token" />

For .NET 6 or core, you would have to add the following to your appsettings.json:

"dotNetReport": {
    "apiurl": "https://www.dotnetreport.com/api",
    "accountApiToken": "Your Public Account Api Token",
    "dataconnectApiToken": "Your Data Connect Api Token",
    "privateApiToken": "Your Private Account Api Token"
},

Login to your account in https://dotnetreport.com and click on “Get Api Keys”. Locate your keys and copy and paste them in to your web.config or appsettings.json file.

Note: You also need to add your connection string corresponding to the Data Connection you had setup.

Step 4: Setup your Database Tables and Views to be used by dotnet Report

Next step is to build and run the project, and navigate to the /dotnetsetup route. This will bring up the administrator/developer screen that should connect to the database you provided in config and list all the Tables and Views in it.