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In this report, we want to write out some data of one particular order (e.g. shipping address, shipping fee, date of the order etc.) and some additional data of one particular customer (e.g. customer’s name, company, job title, address etc.) that are not related to the order. Data model used for all examples is exposed here.

Initially, we are creating a report template. Follow the common preparation steps to start building the template from scratch:

  • Open a new blank Word document and enable it for templating
  • Turn on Data Sources and Elements Explorers
  • Define default data source as the Order class

After that, you should be at the following point:
Defining additional data sources

Clearly, now we are able to put Field elements on the template binding them to properties of the class Order but we do not have any possibility to introduce an Docentric element bound to the Customer’s property. Here comes into play Docentric feature Additional data sources. Additional data source can be defined in the following way:
Defining additional data sources
Define a name for additional data source (the name is mandatory and will be later used in code, at report generation time):
Defining additional data sources
Define a .NET data type representing additional data source:
Defining additional data sources
Select as .NET data type Customer class:
Defining additional data sources
Buttons Edit and Remove can be used in purposes of renaming of additional data sources and removing them from the template:
Defining additional data sources

Add Docentric Field elements from Docentric Ribbon tab (about inserting Field elements you can read here) to the template that are bound to some properties of the Order class by setting their Value property which representing their binding. The properties Binding Source and Binding Path of the Value property should be set to the default data source and appropriate member properties of the class Order respectively:
Defining additional data sources

Add other Docentric Field elements to the template that are bound to some properties of the Customer class (our additional data source) by setting their Value property in following way:
Click on the Binding control of the Value property:
Defining additional data sources
For the (Binding) Source property select the Customer and not default data source. By picking Customer data source for (Binding) Source property, a list of its class property members show up in other part of the Binding Control. Choose the Company property since we want to bind the inserted Field element to the Company of the Customer:
Defining additional data sources
Inserting and binding of Docentric elements at the same time is possible to bring out through Element Builder pane and in that way achieve drastic improvement of report design rapidity. Instructions how to use Element Builder you can find here.

Finally, the template with Field elements bound to additional data source Customer looks like:
Defining additional data sources


Next, save the template and generate the report. Report generation takes place programmatically, from your application that is using (has a reference to) the Docentric Report Engine dll. This code looks like following:

// Instancing report engine, by assigning the data source
DocumentGenerator dg = new DocumentGenerator(DataAccess.GetOrderById(7));

// Generating report by specifying the report template and the resulting report (as file paths)
DocumentGenerationResult result = dg.GenerateDocument("example3.docx", "example3_output.docx");

// Examining potentially errors
if (result.HasErrors)
{
    foreach (Error error in result.Errors) Console.Out.WriteLine(error.Message);
}



Generated report looks like:
Defining additional data sources

Obviously, data related to the Customer have not been populated. This is because we have not specify additional data source in the code. On the first page of generated report you can inspect the list of errors occurred during rendering:
Defining additional data sources

You can certainly turn off this feature (it is turned on by default) and relay on the same list of errors you can reach from the code as well, giving you a chance to react properly:

// Examining potentially errors
if (result.HasErrors)
{
    foreach (Error error in result.Errors) Console.Out.WriteLine(error.Message);
}

Turning off the feature of writing out all errors and warnings occurred during report generation on the generated report:

dg.WriteErrorsAndWarningsToDocument = false;



So as to accomplish populating with data the Fields elements in the template bound to Customer's properties, we need to add additional data source named exactly as in the template - Customer :

// Instancing report engine, by assigning the data source
Order orderDataSource = DataAccess.GetOrderById(7);
DocumentGenerator dg = new DocumentGenerator(orderDataSource);

// Adding additional data source named exactly as in the template
Customer customerDataSource = DataAccess.GetCustomerById(15);
dg.AddDataSource("Customer", customerDataSource);

// Generating report by specifying the report template and the resulting report (as file paths)
DocumentGenerationResult result = dg.GenerateDocument("example3.docx", "example3_output.docx");


Resulting report looks like:
Defining additional data sources