Create PowerPoint Report Actions

Create PowerPoint Report actions write the contents of one or more Table datasets or parameters to a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. The presentation is created from a template that may be uploaded by selecting the Data/Report Templates/PowerPoint Templates folder in the LiveCompare hierarchy.

Each Table dataset or parameter is written to the data source associated with a chart in the template presentation. Before configuring a Create PowerPoint Report action, you will need to upload a template presentation that contains at least one chart.

When a Create PowerPoint Report action is run, a new report is generated based upon the template presentation, and stored in a folder underneath the LiveCompare user data directory. If the Create PowerPoint Report action’s Fixed parameter is set to ‘false’, its reports are stored in the following time-stamped directory:

<LiveCompare user data dir>\public\Reports\<Workspace Name>\<Report Name>_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS

If the Create PowerPoint Report action’s Fixed parameter is set to ‘true’, its reports are stored in the following directory, which does not include a time stamp:

<LiveCompare user data dir>\public\Reports\<Workspace Name>\<Report Name>

Action Property	Description
Fixed	A Boolean parameter which indicates whether the Create PowerPoint Report action will generate fixed location reports. If this parameter is set to ‘true’, the action stores its report in the <Report Name> directory; this directory will be removed and then recreated each time the action is run. If the Fixed parameter is set to ‘false’, a new report will be generated in its own time-stamped directory each time the action is run. Each fixed location report in a workspace should normally have a different value for its Report Name parameter. This will ensure that each workflow’s Report URL dataset points to the expected report.
Report Name	A String parameter which stores the name used for the generated report. If the Fixed parameter is set to ‘false’, the generated report name includes a timestamp indicating when the report was created. The generated PowerPoint presentation is named <Report Name>.pptx, excluding any characters that are not permitted in for use in filenames.
Report URL	A String dataset which is set to contain the URL of the generated PowerPoint report.
Source to Slide Map	A Pair List parameter which maps the Source1 or Source2 tables to slides in the template presentation. The first item in each pair list should be set to either ‘Source1’ or ‘Source2’. The second item in each pair should contain the number of a slide that contains a PowerPoint chart. Slide numbers start from 1.
Source1	A Table parameter or dataset containing data to be written to the data source for a chart in the template presentation.
Source2	A second Table parameter or dataset containing data to be written to the data source for a chart in the template presentation.
Template Presentation	A String parameter which contains the name of a template PowerPoint presentation stored in the ‘PowerPointReports’ directory on the LiveCompare server. The presentations stored in this directory may be selected from a drop-down list.

Generated PowerPoint reports may be opened by double-clicking the Report URL dataset, or choosing ‘View Details’ from the dataset’s context menu. In order to view each report, your client web browser must have the following security settings specified for the ‘Internet’ and ‘Local Intranet’ zones. These settings can be found in the ‘Downloads’ section of Internet Explorer’s ‘Security Settings’ dialog:

Setting	Value
Automatic prompting for file downloads	Enable
File download	Enable

Generated PowerPoint reports may be accessed from a workspace’s Reports folder in the LiveCompare hierarchy. Choose ‘Reload Children’ from the folder’s context menu to list any newly-generated reports.

Example:

To examine the details for a Create PowerPoint Report action, double-click the action node, or select ‘View Details’ from the node’s context menu. The Details screen displays the time taken for the action to complete.

Create PowerPoint Report actions support the use of the Define Action Parameters Wizard which allows new ‘Source’ input parameters to be created with the type ‘Table’. This allows PowerPoint reports to be created from more than two Table parameters or datasets.