DataDynamic Reporter is an extended version that allows the automated creation of MS Powerpoint or PDF reports.

DataDynamic supports the following reporting scenarios:


  1. Initial design

    In DataDynamic go to the "Office reports", you can either copy a tableset from the Scrapbook or Workbook tabs or you can open a previously saved ddo.
    For each table in your DDO you can define one or more charts or tables to export.

    You can add your own chart templates, thru the "Charts" button in the top menu, you can then Add or Remove PPT template files. A ppt template file is a PPTX file containing one or more PPT charts per slide. The object name of each chart (as found or set in the selection pane) is used as the selection name.

    For charts you can set the following options:
    1. A reference name, this should be a unique value per export item that can be used in the powerpoint template to refer to that specific item.
    2. Precision; number of decimal places used in the charts
    3. Transpose value to title; will transpose the first table total  value to the title of the chart
    4. Transpose value to series; will transpose row totals to series description
    5. Transpose value to categories; will transpose the column totals to category description
    6. Drop the last column; will not add the last column into the chart
    7. Drop the last row; will not add the last row to the chart.
    8. Swap series & categories; will do exactly what it says.
    9. Transpose format, format to use when transposing values to title, category or series. '{0}' will be replaced by the current description and '{1}' will be replaced with the transposed values.
    10. Reverse series; will show the series in reversed order in the chart.
    11. Add if not found; Will append a chart to the report output when it is not found in the template.

For tables you can set the following options:

  1. A reference name, this should be a unique value per export item that can be used in the powerpoint template to refer to that specific item.
  2. Table style; select  a table style, the drop down shows the stylenames as defined for tables in PPT.

You can create your first output by clicking on PowerPoint in the top menu, you can select a template file. A template file at this stage is a PPTX file that has nothing but a single slide with a layout and single shape with the Name "ddplaceholder" that shape will be used to determine the size and position of the elements added.

You specify your output directory,  no more settings required at this stage, just click on "Run export".
When done the output directory will contain a single PPTX file, with one slide for each table and chart defined.


Once done do not forget to save all your settings by saving the tables in a DDO.

  1. Custom report production

    This is were you will find that DataDynamic really starts to add value to your report production process.
    You can now take the output produced in step 1 and tailor it to become a real report, you can move charts and tables around, combine them on a single slide or change their L&F. You can add text, images or shapes have elements show or hide based on values in your tables or add respondent level answer tables specifying your columns, ordering and filters.
    Save your report and now select your changed report as your template, and rerun the export, you will find a new output file with all the charts and tables and changes you made updated with the latest data, this will allow you to start developing your report before datacollection has finished.

    The second option you have in this stage is to define an addition setting the "Report grouping variable". Lets say you want to produce your report once for each country in your dataset. Select your country variable and rerun the export.
    You will now find thatDataDynamic has produced one output file for each of the countries for which data is available.
    Each individual report will have the data used automatically filtered to only the data for that specific country.

    This approach allows you to quickly create large number of reports fully automated, for example on shop level. We have customers producing hundres of reports weekly in just minutes using DataDynamic Reporting.

  2. Custom report RE-production

    The reports created in step 2, for example on country level, can of course always be amended by hand after they have been created. You can add specific sections or add some summary or conclusions in the countries own language.
    If you run a recurring survey where the dataset gets extended with each ocurance having its own 'wave id' it is possible to reproduce all of the reports created in step 2 and maintain the changes made by hand.
    The way to do this is by selecting the standard template as used in step 2, and then select the output directory that contains a copy of the reports created and changed in step 2. DataDynamic will find that a report file already exists in the output directory for a specific country and use that file as the template rather then the base template. This way all charts tables and dynamic items will be updated without loosing your manual changes. If a country was not included in the previous run then a new output file will be created based on the specified template just as in step 2.

You can in step 2 and step 3 always choose to produce your output in PDF format, but make sure you only do this if you do not want to re-use the output as a template and do not want to make manual changes.