Objective
To make a document template by dragging and dropping PODs into the template.
Background Information
Don’t be fooled by the number of steps in this tutorial. About half of them are just showing off that the POD actually worked! (i.e. Steps 5, 7 and 10)
Pre-requisites
Creating a PODStarting Template
We will start with a blank document in this tutorial, but you need the POD file (*.rdlx) created in the Creating a POD tutorial.
Procedure
1. Open POD bin
To access PODs, you can load them from the Load Pods button in the AutoTag Manager ribbon, but since we will be using thePod bin later, it will be more convenient to go ahead and load PODs through it. To open it, simply click the Pod bin icon in the AutoTag ribbon.
2. Click File and Add local
Click the Browse button and locate the POD (*.rdlx) file you created in Creating a POD to open it.
3. Drag MSSQL to document
All you have to do now is drag in all of the PODs you created before. First We’ll check out the MSSQL POD which contains the MSSQL datasource.
4. Check Datasources
Open up the Datasources window to see that the MSSQL datasource has indeed been added to the template. This is in the AutoTag Manager ribbon.
5. Drag AutoTagVar POD to document and check parameters
Now drag in the parameter POD you created called AutoTagVar. The result isn’t immediately obvious. Open the Parameters window to verify this POD.
6. Drag Header and CategorySales1997 to document
Now drag the Header you created to the document and see that the text and formatting is just the way you left it. With this, you can see that AutoTag PODs can be used for more than just carrying over datasources, Parameters and complex tags! Finally, drag in the CategorySales1997 POD. The full table including the End ForEach tag all get inserted in the document, and you barely had to do a thing!
7. Generate document
You now have a full template, so click Output and choose a format to see the generated document!
