Add Dynamic Data to a Document

You can add dynamic data to a document by dragging a dataset object from the Dataset Objects panel onto your document. Remember that an object appears differently based on which section you add it to. For example, a metric placed in the Detail section repeats for every row of the dataset, whereas a metric placed in the page header display grand totals for the entire document. See Understanding and Working with Document Sections for details.

A dynamic data field is a text field that contains a reference to an object (metric, attribute, consolidation, or custom group) on a document. When you view the document as a PDF, the data fields are replaced by the actual data.

1. Open a document in design mode.
2. Add a dataset to your document.

3. Drag a dataset object from the Dataset Objects panel to the Detail section of your document. You can expand objects and drag their attribute forms as well.

   The reference in a data field is the object name inside braces { }. The braces indicate that the text fields are data fields, instead of static text. Notice the differences between the objects in design mode vs. editable mode, as shown below. In design mode, the Detail section displays the attribute forms for the employee last name, employee first name, and employee ID, as well as the Revenue metric. A comma has been manually entered between the employee last name and first name to separate them. You can manually add extra text into fields as necessary or type out the attributes, attribute forms, metrics, and so on in braces.

   

   

Some rules to remember:

• Type the object's name within braces, such as {Revenue} or {Region}. The name must match either the name of an object in a dataset or its alias. If either name contains spaces or special characters, you must type it in square brackets [ ] within the braces, as in {[Last Year Revenue]}. A special character is any character other than a-z, A-Z, 0-9, #, _, and . (period).
• To display a particular attribute form, type @ attribute_form after the object name, within braces, where attribute_form is the name of the attribute form that appears. If you specify an attribute form that does not exist for an attribute, the data field cannot be resolved and the syntax appears as text in the PDF.
• If a metric exists in multiple datasets, use the syntax {[dataset name]:[object name]}. Do not associate an attribute with a specific dataset, as attribute elements come from the joined datasets.
• You can also add dynamic data to static text fields.