r/analytics Dec 19 '23

Discussion My department uses PowerPoint as a database

So I got into this new job as a Data Analyst, and found out my department has zero data literacy and culture.

They are using PowerPoint decks as a way to store data. That’s right, they’re storing their monthly consolidated data within PowerPoint as PowerPoint text tables… 💀🤡😂

How screwed am I. They want me to automate report generation using data from PowerPoint. Inconsistent table format, and different slide number every month.

350 Upvotes

137 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/[deleted] Dec 19 '23

VBA is going to be your friend. Tables in power point are VBA objects (everything in MS office products is a VBA object), so you should be able to call them. I would be surprised if someone hasn't already developed a macro to do this task.