Forma 1.2.0

Your SQL Server database, in your reports (9 November 2026)

Run one read-only script in SSMS and drop its result in the box: Forma reads your database’s tables, views, keys and stored procedures without connecting to it, and a report reads your database by connection name, as DevExpress writes it, never with a password. The AI binds to your real columns when you share the layout, the Preview prints your sample rows as DevExpress would, a report is checked against a newer export, and on your own PC the companion reads the database itself.

New

• Data. A database’s layout, from Forma’s read-only script or an SSMS “Generate Scripts” file, attached in the box or pasted on the Data tab: tables, views, keys, and each stored procedure’s parameters, defaults and result columns, read without running it, with the reason when a procedure cannot be described. Kept in this browser, never in the cloud.
• Data. Sample rows from the tables you pick, by a second read-only script, so the AI can match a printed column to the right field by what it holds.
• Data. The Data tab browses the database: find a table, view, procedure or column, see each one’s types and keys, choose what the report reads (a table with the joins its foreign keys suggest, a stored procedure, or a checked SELECT of your own) with its filter, sort and limit, and bind a field to the control you last selected on the Preview.
• Data. Write into the report: the query becomes DevExpress’s own SQL data source, connected by name as your application’s config knows it, never with a password, with its report parameters (defaults, several values, a lookup list and one that depends on another), master-detail bands and calculated fields. The report opens in the designer with its fields listed and no connection needed, and the Spec shows the config entry and the code that runs it.
• Report design. Share a database with the AI (Send names and sample values to the AI on the Data tab, on when you attach its layout) and a report designed from a picture or a description binds to its real columns: the AI says which table, view or procedure it read, Forma checks every name against the layout and writes the data source itself.
• Chat. With a database shared, the chat changes what the report reads in place: “bind it to dbo.usp_Sales”, “add the customer’s phone”, “filter by a region parameter”, and “group by Region”, which adds a group band with a total when asked. Each can be undone.
• Data. Custom SQL from a sentence on the Data tab, and any custom SQL checked against your database’s layout: a table or column it does not have is refused, not run.
• Preview. Sample rows in the Preview: with your database’s sample rows, it fills from them in one click, with no request. Each field prints as DevExpress prints it from SQL Server (a decimal at its scale, money at four places, a code with its leading zeros), the query’s joins and filter apply, and each record’s detail lines print under it.
• Data. The Data tab shows a report’s own SQL data source, its connection, queries, fields and parameters, and can browse the layout it uses as the database.
• Data. A report checked against a newer export of your database: a renamed column, a changed type, a stored procedure’s changed parameters or a table the export lacks, each with its fix in one click. A query naming a column the database no longer has stops DevExpress printing the report at all.
• Site. A Docs article on your SQL Server data: the scripts, the steps, the connection name and running the report in your application. Features and Compare say what Forma does with a database, and that it never connects to one.
• Data. Read from my SQL Server: with Forma running on your own PC and its companion (RepxDesigner.exe --serve), the Data tab reads your database’s layout and sample rows straight from it, with no script to copy. Connections are added in the companion, and a login’s password stays there, encrypted for your Windows user.
• Preview. Live rows: on your own PC the Preview prints the report from your database with the parameter values you type. A stored procedure runs only when you press the button that names it.

Improved

• Data. The column mapping says how sure each match is, by heading and by the values the column shows, and offers the likeliest field in one click; on a bound report, a field your database lacks is renamed to the right one in one click.
• Preview. The Preview asks for each parameter by its type: a number, a date, Yes or No, a choice from the report’s lookup list (one list depending on another), or a box for each value when it takes several.
• Preview. AI test data for a report on a database comes as the database holds it, and is typed from its columns.
• Data. Open in designer gives the designer the report’s connection from your PC, so its preview works at once, and saving still writes only the connection’s name.

Changed

• Site. The privacy policy says what of your database goes to the AI and when (only what you share), and that no connection string, login or password is ever asked for, stored or sent.

Fixed

• Data. Binding one label no longer hides the Data tab’s table mapping behind a message about a table nobody had bound.
• Data. A parameter that only the report’s SQL query uses is no longer reported as unused.
• Preview. A detail report under a filtered report no longer prints another record’s lines.
• Report design. A redesign keeps the report’s data source and the parameters its queries use, which the AI could drop.
• Data. Writing a data source over another removes the parameters only the old one used, and writing one again no longer gives a parameter a second lookup list, which DevExpress refused to open.
• Chat. After you add your key and press Check key, the model menu in the chat box lists the models your key can use straight away, instead of only after the page is reloaded.
• Report design. A report restyled in your house style no longer loses its styles when DevExpress opens it. Two of its parts could share an internal number, and DevExpress then dropped the whole style sheet without a word.
• Report design. A report with a detail band no longer warns that its Mockup and its file disagree on the number of sections.

Security

• Data. A report that arrives carrying a database login or password leaves Forma with the connection by name only, and the REPX checks say so.
• Data. Signing out removes the database layouts and sample rows kept on the device, as it does your uploads.

Every release, with a feed: https://openforma.web.app/changelog