Dynamic Content Creator (Admin)

The Dynamic Content Creator (DCC) simplifies the process of setting up user-selectable (or auto-configured) content to push to Microsoft Word outputs. Instead of setting up separate doc sections in the document library for paragraph, bulleted and other content – along with modifying the DocSections named range within each tab – the DCC functionality enables all content to be defined and driven from a single named range within an Excel tab, which is then pushed to Word when an output is generated.

Set Up Instructions
DCC set up is a simple two-step process …

1. Define a named range that starts with “DocContent” (e.g., DocContentSOW, DocContentExecSummary, etc.) comprised of three columns:

a. Include/select column, where any value greater than zero (0) will push the content for that row to the Word output. You can insert Excel formulas into this column to auto-configure content based on user inputs and other data contained within a quote file.
b. Content text column, containing the content to push to the Word output.
c. Content Type column, defining the type of content to push (e.g., “Bullet”, “Paragraph”).

2. Add the DocContent named range to the document library via Library Manager (with an “External” doc location) to define where in the Word outputs the content should appear.

There is no need to format the cells within the DocContent named range on the raw tab; SDA will auto-format all rows (that contain a Content Type) within any DocContent named ranges when a tab is brought into a live quote file.

Content Types
You can set up numerous types of content to push to Word outputs by inserting one of the values below into the third column of the DocContent named range…

• Bullet
• SubBullet
• Paragraph. Note that if you italicize the text in Excel, it’ll also italicize it in Word.
• ImageFile. Keep the “content” column blank if you wish for the user to browse for the image file to incorporate. You might precede an ImageFile row with a header row and perhaps a “Paragraph” row to introduce the image.
• SubHeading. This will insert bolded text to separate other text content.
• Heading1
• Heading1+Break (i.e., with a page break)
• Heading2
• Heading2+Break
• Heading3
• Heading3+Break
• ElementHeading. An ElementHeading will be formatted as a Heading2 on the output and forces an alpha sort of the DCC content by ElementName.
• ElementHeading+Break
• Table and ranges. Specify Table, TableAsGraphic, TableTwoWay, TableTwoWayAsGraphic, Range, or RangeAsGraphic as the Content Type and the named range (of the table/range) as the “content”. Please note that this function will first try to find the named range that’s on the same tab as the DocContent range and, if it doesn’t find it, will search the other tabs in the quote file to find the first instance of that named range.

When users dynamically insert content into a DocContent named range within a live quote file – via the “Insert Dynamic Content” option under the Update Tab(s) menu – a new row will be inserted with the appropriate Content Type auto-entered into the third column of the new row.

Set Up Details and Considerations
Below are further details on the functionality and elements that you might consider as you are setting up content for the Dynamic Content Creator…

• Blank cells in the include/select column are automatically unprotected in a live quote file. Non-blank cells will retain the protection you set up on the raw tab.
• You can include other elements within and around the DocContent range, for example intermediate calculations or rows within the DocContent range that do not have a Content Type listed in the third column of the DocContent range.
• Content can be part of more than one DocContent range for added flexibility. For example, qualification bullets could be part of both the DocContentQuals named range as well as the DocContentExecSummary named range.
• You can program (in the include/select column) inclusion of content rows based on the OutputType – a named range that you can reference in your formulas – driven from the Output Type column (column D) in outputs.xls.
• If there is no Heading1 or Heading2 row above a DocContent item on a tab, the content item will be sorted with the tab’s ElementName or the quote’s SiteDescription named range.
• Element/site-grouped content items are sorted alphabetically and appear AFTER Header1 or Header2 DocContent items.

If the same DocContent named range exists on multiple tabs within a quote file – or across several quote files in a multi-quote output – SDA will assemble the content together across all the tabs and files, sorting the content as described above.

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