The third part of our Report Generator Guidance explains the main part of linking together the PPT template and the elements from the dashboard.
Codes to Alt Text
Each dashboard widget is given a unique element name, to allow the dashboard data to populate the template's placeholders.
The element name is used as a reference point to link the widget to the corresponding placeholder in PowerPoint within alt text. Multiple placeholders can be connected to one dashboard widget/element name.
Once the element name is added to the alt text of the placeholder, PowerPoint can connect to the dashboard and retrieve the data associated with that widget.
Dashboard: Element naming
Required role:
Report Creator
Open Dashboard Settings and click on Elements
Select a chart or table and edit the element id to make it readable and easy to find:
Ensure that each element id is unique;
Only use Latin letters (a,b,c…) or numbers;
It is case insensitive;
Don’t use the spacebar, instead divide words or phrases with a dash or underscore;
Name the widgets consistently with a naming pattern. For example, use the order
Brand_Question_Wave/quarter, e.g. brand1_awareness_l4q.
Repeat this for every single chart and table on your dashboard that needs to be mapped to the template.
See the video below for step-by-step instructions:
Template: Link elements via Alt Text
Open the template
Right-click on any table or chart and go to Alt Text.
Insert the element name from the dashboard into the alt text box.
Use the copy button (under each element name) and paste this into the template to avoid any small errors or changes in the naming.
The element name must be inserted between these symbols in the template: ${element_name} e.g. brand_1 from the dashboard should be inserted as ${brand_1} in the template.
Ensure that you use curly brackets only {…} as you cannot use normal brackets for this function.
Template: Insert placeholders mapped text (e.g. sample sizes)
You can also link a table or chart to the template as text. This is useful for adding question numbers or samples to your PowerPoint template without typing it manually for each slide.
The following steps will show you how to add a sample sizes table to your PPT template.
Copy the previously created and named sample size table to your clipboard and go to the template.
Paste it as text anywhere on the slide that you want the text to appear. Remember to always enclose it within these symbols ${element_name}.
Edit the font, text size, color etc. as you would like them to appear.
Copy and paste the code onto all relevant slides.
The image below shows the first slide of a downloaded report with the sample size table shown in the bottom-left corner.
Upload the template to the dashboard
Once you have linked all elements from the dashboard to the template you can upload the template to DataTile.
Open the Dashboard and switch to EDIT mode;
Open Reports and select Add new report;
In the pop-up window enter the report title and choose to upload the .pptx template;
Once the template is uploaded you can immediately download the new report filled with the current data:
Click the ‘snowman’ icon on the right of the toolbar;
In the drop-down window, find the report title in the report section;
Click on the report title and the PPT file will be downloaded at once.
Instead of Step 4, you can create a report generator button to download each report directly from the dashboard in one click (see below).
Create the Report generator button
If you use generated reports rather often it’s reasonable to create the button which initiates the downloading of the last version of the report:
Go to the dashboard and switch to the EDIT mode;
Click on the ‘Create a report button’ icon from the toolbar;
Select the report which will be downloaded if you have many of them;
Switch to the VIEW mode to use the button.
