A large client wants me to build a website for them. They want CMS. I think, Umbraco! They want a dynamic site. I think, Umbraco! They want to pull data from an external database. I think Umbraco (extension)! So far so good, Umbraco is a great solution for them!

Now the issue that I don't know how to handle... I need some advice.

Many of the documents they create are filled with statistical data. This data is pulled from an external database. No problem there. But they want to put in placeholders for the actual data, sort of like mail-merge fields in MSWord. Then, every month they can update the number in the database and the new reports will be ready automatically. They already have hundreds of these kinds of documents and make more all the time.

How could I use Umbraco for these kinds of documents? Is it reasonable to insert hundreds of macros in a document for each data field? How else might it be handled?

Thanks!
doug.

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MVP 2007-2009 - Percipient Studios

A minisite is an option, but not one I'm in favor of... for one thing, they write these reports by hand so they come out "just right" and have all the formatting just so. That means they need an HTML editor for these pages just as they do for regular pages. Also, the navigation between the main site and the minisite would have be synchronized.

I'll keep the minisite idea in the back of my head. But surely there must be a way for Umbraco to help with this project, even with needing to insert values from an external datasource in multiple places within a document?

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MVP 2007-2009 - Percipient Studios