When you use an XML data provider as a data source in SSRS, the query text generally consists of mainly of SOAPAction or MethodName tags. This also allows you to add an ElementPath tag which precisely filters the data you need to build a report.

However, this method increases your risk of loosing Fields (columns) when the data source is refreshed. To avoid this problem, add the element and attribute names, as well as their values in the ElementPath so that the fields are always recognized. This helps simplify the report building process.

Here’s an example:

             http://tempuri.org/GetSampleDataSet%3c/SoapAction>             GetSampleDataSetResponse                 {} /GetSampleDataSetResult/diffgram {}/Results {}/Table1{ @rowOrder, testID,                 testName,testDescription}               

In the above code, @rowOrder is the attribute of Table1 and testID, testName, and TestDescription are elements of Table 1.