Have achieved my goal by adding a @function block at the top of the view.

Just takes a couple of lines of code to get the macro parameter and then get a list of objects (using peta poco) which I can use in my razor view.

Not sure if this is the "right" way to do it but it works!

Hi Graeme, This is exactly what I would like to do, do you have examples of the Model, Controller cs files as I am new to MVC and not sure which route I should be taking to achieve this, eg.g PetaPoco???

Hi David.

I put my code directly in a template in the end as the macro was confusing for the content editors. Yes I used PetaPoco and the simplest way was to embed the code in the top of the template in a function block. Then call the function, loop through the objects in the razor code to render the content. As I said above not sure if it's the "right" way to do it.

The code below is pasted from a partial view called from the template that queries another database (not the Umbraco db). Note that: - the staff object needs to be setup in the models folder. - myDb needs to be a connect string in your web.config - in this case CategoryID is a property of the containing page's document type which is entered to match the relevant value on the db Hope this helps!

@inherits Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoTemplatePage
@using LPPUmbracoMVCWebApp.Models

@using Umbraco.Core.Persistence; @*for peta poco *@

@functions {   

    public List<Staff> GetStaff(string myCat){
     var db = new Database("myDB");
      return db.Query<LPP_Staff>("SELECT * FROM StaffDetails WHERE CategoryID = " + myCat + " ORDER BY Surname").ToList();  

    }              
}

@{      
    // value from the containing view's model...
    string catRef = Model.Content.GetPropertyValue("CategoryID").ToString();
    var myStaff = GetStaff(catRef);    
}

<h2>Our Staff</h2>
    <table class="table table-bordered"><tr><th>Name</th><th>Title</th><th>Telephone</th><th>EMail</th></tr>
    @foreach (Staff s in myStaff)
 {        

  <tr>

  <td>
  @s.FirstName @s.Surname
     </td>
     <td>@s.JobDescription</td>
     <td>@s.TelephoneNo  


     </td>
     <td>
      @s.LoweredEmail
     </td>
     </tr>

 } 

    </table>

Thanks Graeme, will give that a go - cheers

I am new to umbraco, may I know the steps of access the external database in umbraco?

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