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This section is intended to help developers start working with the chosen SDK quickly. You will learn how to obtain security credentials to authorize your requests to Assembly Cloud API and proceed with three steps of the report generation process to demonstrate some major features and functionalities. The following code samples illustrate, that the Reporting Cloud API can be integrated into your application with just several lines of code in almost any mainstream programming language.

To start using Assembly Cloud API you need to set up your credentials.

Please, follow the instructions below to get your App Key and App SID security credentials:

1. Log into the GroupDocs Cloud Dashboard.
2. Click on My Apps tab. Each App has its own App Key and App SID credentials.
3. A default App already exists under the Manage My Apps tab, and you can simply use it.
4. Click on the lock icon to access your App Key.
5. If you want to create a new application, click on the Create New App button.
6. Enter details for the new App and then click on the Save button.
7. A new App has been created with a storage quota of 500 MB. You can view the newly created App under My Apps tab.

Irrespective of the scale and type of document automation you are planning to employ, there are three necessary steps of the report generation process:

1. Document template design.
2. Data source design.
3. Writing and executing a program code.

NOTE

For demonstration purposes, we’ll use a prepared set of materials.

First, you need to create a document template with tags and expressions, also known as document generation rules, that regulate the document’s structure, format and content variations. You can create a new document template from the ground up or quickly turn your existing document into the template.

The following document template example demonstrates some typical tags, you can use to generate tables and diagrams dynamically in your reports:

At the next step, you need to create a JSON or XML data source with a correct structure and data. Уou can prepare it by extracting and serializing your business objects to JSON or XML formats. Since business data is often fragmented and distributed in a variety of formats, creating the appropriate information processing subsystem is often required.

The following example demonstrates a JSON data source, that is compatible with a previous document template:

{
 "client": "Mr.Brown",
 "address": "St.Road 82",
 "orders": [
    {
     "date": "2015-03-05",
     "products": [
        { "name": "Monitor", "price": 2, "quantity": 2},
        { "name": "Computer", "price": 3, "quantity": 1}
      ]
    },
    {
     "date": "2015-03-15",
     "products": [
        { "name": "Monitor", "price": 2, "quantity": 1},
        { "name": "Printer", "price": 1, "quantity": 2},
        { "name": "Computer", "price": 3, "quantity": 1}
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Finally, you need to use a program code to pass a document template with a data source to the Reporting Engine to bind them together and produce a final document, which would look as follows: