---
title: "Introduction"
slug: "introduction-to-datasources"
description: "An overview of datasources: what types are supported, how they connect to your data, and how they're used across the rest of the product."
updated: 2026-10-08T11:56:21Z
published: 2026-10-08T11:56:21Z
canonical: "help.mail-and-deploy.com/introduction-to-datasources"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.mail-and-deploy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction to Datasources

### General

Datasources are files or services that provide content that Mail & Deploy can use to read data and visualizations, apply filters, render embedded reports etc.

**Example:** A QlikView document (QVW file) that contains data, charts, tables can be used as datasource in Mail & Deploy.

Mail & Deploy supports the following categories of datasources:

- [QlikView Datasources](/release36/docs/introduction-to-qlikview)
- [Qlik Sense Datasources](/release36/docs/introduction-to-qliksense)
- [SQL Datasources](/release36/docs/introduction-to-sql)
- [PowerBI](/release36/docs/power-bi)

### Managing Datasources

There are various ways to manage datasources in Mail & Deploy.

#### Management Service

You can connect to the [Management Service](/release36/docs/services) user interface of Mail & Deploy and click the *Datasources* item in the main menu. This will provide you with a list of all datasources currently set up in Mail & Deploy.

NOTE

Only users of type *Adminstrator* may manage datasources through the *Management Service*. If you don't see the *Datasources* item in the main menu, the most likely reason is that you are not a user of that type.

From the datasource list, you can then start to edit or delete existing datasources as well as creating new datasources manually.

#### API

You can programmatically manage datasources using the [API](/release36/docs/introduction-to-mail-and-deploy-api) of Mail & Deploy.

### Cache

Mail & Deploy caches information about a datasource such as tables, views, variables, fields, visualizations, and embedded reports contained in the datasource. This makes the design process of [Reports](/release36/docs/introduction-to-reports), [Tasks](/release36/docs/tasks), etc. faster, because Mail & Deploy only has to access its cache rather than connect to the datasource directly.

NOTE

It is very important to keep this cache up to date; the cache needs to be rebuilt when a new datasource has been added or if a field, variable, visualization, or embedded report has changed within the datasource. The cache does not need to be rebuilt if only the data of the datasource has changed.

The cache can be rebuilt by connecting to the [Management Service](/release36/docs/services) user interface of Mail & Deploy, clicking the *Datasources* item in the main menu and then clicking the ![Image](https://cdn.document360.io/e3657e0f-d0b6-4032-8271-1f5869a7b807/Images/Documentation/image(63).png) button for the datasource whose cache to rebuild.