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Data Binding Overview

RadScheduler requires some sort of data binding so that it can store and retrieve the information it displays about appointments. At a minimum, the data for the scheduler must include for each appointment a Subject, a Start time, and an End time. Optionally, it can include fields for Description, Reminder and for handling appointment recurrence: the Recurrence rule, the Recurrence state, and the RecurrenceParentID. It can also include fields for any custom resources and attributes you want to include. If you are including custom resources, there must also be additional data binding to supply the scheduler with the possible values for each custom resource type.

You can bind the scheduler to either a standard ASP.NET data source control, or to a custom provider. There are three ways of binding RadScheduler to its data:

  • Using ASP.NET 2.0 declarative data source controls. This method lets you use the Data Source Configuration Wizard to set up the data binding in the designer. It is the simplest method of data binding. When using declarative data source controls, you can't assign multiple resource values to a single appointment.

  • Using the DataSource property. This method lets you bind the scheduler to any object that implements the IListSource or IEnumerable interface. However, when binding the scheduler in this way, you must either make the scheduler read-only, or implement the code to insert, update, and delete appointments using the RadScheduler server-side events. When using the DataSource property, you can't assign multiple resource values to a single appointment.

  • Using a Data Provider. This method is the most flexible, but also the most complicated to implement. This is the only method that lets you assign multiple resource values to a single appointment.

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