Assembling reports with Small Parts

Applies to JungleDocs for SharePoint 2010-2019.
For a similar tutorial for JungleDocs for Office 365, click here.

With JungleDocs you can configure a template to retrieve information from several SharePoint locations into one document. Sometimes, you might only need need parts of that information - or different combinations of the same pieces of content, and that's when Small Parts are a useful tool. Essentially, Small Parts are document templates that you can assemble into a final document by clicking checkboxes.

Configuration

This tutorial begins with creating Small Parts and adding them to a dedicated library. Then, we'll configure a JungleDocs template and rule to include Small Parts. Finally, we will use the rule to generate a company report.

1. Small Part library configuration

1. Go to your Small Parts library or create one if do not have it yet.

2. Add a folder to your Small Parts library, and name it accordingly. In the example, we've added two folders: Company and Charts.

Note

We recommend distributing your Small Parts across folders in the library. This way, you will be able to choose what folders to include in the rule template so that when you run this rule, unnecessary folders will not be displayed.

3. Add the documents (Small Parts) you want to use in your reports to the relevant folders. In the example, we've added the Contacts, Quotations and Proposals documents into the Company folder. Then, we've placed the Chart Invoices document in the Charts folder.

2. Small Part template configuration

Now, we'll configure Small Part templates to retrieve information from SharePoint lists.

1. To retrieve contacts for a selected company, create a dynamic view which will be used in the following steps. In the example, we've created the Filtered view in the Contacts list.

2. Create a filter for your dynamic company name. In the example, the value of the Company column (in the Contacts list) must be equal to the value of the Company column in the library where your created reports will be saved.

3. Open your Small Part template and create a repeated section. In the example, we're using a Rich Text content control with the basic GetView function: GetView("ListName"; "ViewName"). Inside this content control, we've added content controls to retrieve values of specified columns in the SharePoint list (Contacts): First Name, Last Name, Mobile Number and E-mail.

2. Rule template configuration

Now we can create the general template for our report.

1. Go to the library in which you save your document templates and create a new Word document from the ribbon.

2. Open this document and edit to include the information you want.

3. Insert Small Parts placeholders using content controls. You can copy content controls using the Generate sample document link in JungleDocs rule settings, or you can insert them manually, using Rich Text content controls with the tag Small Part: Folder Name.

3. Rule configuration

Now we'll configure the JungleDocs rule to include the Small Parts you just added to your library, into your future company reports. There are two ways to do this.

Option 1

If you want your reports to be created in a particular library with automatic naming, then create a library for such reports or use an existing one. In this library, you need an additional column for the company name. In the example, the lookup column Company refers to the Companies list.

Now you need to create content types for different types of reports and set a default document template in your content type settings. As a result, JungleDocs will automatically show all Base rules based on content types. Having done this, you will only need to provide the Small Parts location and file naming formulas in rule settings.

Alternatively, you can have just one general content type (for example, Report). In this case, you can create and configure several Base rules in the JungleDocs New tab. You can make each of these rules use the same content type but a custom template. In the latter case, you should, under the Document template header, select Custom template and click Manage custom template to provide a template URL location or to upload your template file.

In the end, the Base rule settings will look like the image below:

Now you can start creating your reports directly from that library. Open JungleDocs from the ribbon and click on the rule. Then, select the Small Parts you want to include in your report and click OK when you are finished.

Under Company, select a company name and click Save.

Your company report will now be generated for the selected company.

Option 2

Your second option is to start from the Companies list itself. In that case, you will need to configure a new From existing rule. To do this, select a company item and launch JungleDocs from the ribbon.

Note

If you want to save generated reports in the Reports library you created before, browse to that location and choose the Base rule configured above. The Base rules settings, like your file naming, will then be copied.

Under Document template, you can also edit your template, upload a custom template and generate a sample document.

Under Specify small parts library location, browse for the Small Parts library you want JungleDocs to search when generating your company reports.