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Pull data from a Spreadsheet

Example data mapping: Google Sheets

Walk through the data mapping for a Google Sheet data source

Now we'll walk through a simple slide deck that pulls client data from a Google Sheet. The slide template looks like this: Screenshot 2025-01-14 at 1.21.18 PM Each time I generate the deck for a different client, Slideform will pull in different information on slides 1 & 2 for the client name, client logo, and other account specific data.

Slides 3 & 4 contain sales summary data, charts, and tables that come from a different Google Sheet.

The template has been linked to Slideform as a New Project.

The Google Sheet

Below is the spreadsheet that contains the client account information. Each line corresponds to a client.

Screenshot 2025-01-09 at 1.42.23 PM

I also connected a sales overview sheet that has KPIs, text, charts, and data tables. These data will be used on slides 3 & 4 in my deck.

I have connected both Google Sheets as a data source in Slideform.

The Configure Data screen

Let's take a look at how to connect the data to the slide template.

Click Configure Data on the project card to open it. On the configuration page you will see the project name & description, a link to the template file, and below that a series of blue boxes representing each of the placeholders in the template.

Let's walk through each placeholder together.

Set the client - {{client}}

The first placeholder is {{client}} - this will hold the client name. For the client, I want to have a dropdown menu so that the user will choose from a list of the client names that are in the spreadsheet.

First, enter a prompt for this placeholder. This is what the user will see. I want the user to "Select the client:".

Next, set the input type to dropdown (single select).

Click the "Preset a Value" button to set up the options that will be shown in the dropdown.

You can specify formatting for the values if desired. This is helpful if you have dollars or percents that need to be formatted. In the case of text, we don't need to set the formatting.

Next you will select the data source. Under "Where is the data from?", choose your data file.

(If you don't see your data source, then you need to go to the Data Source tab at the top of the page and enable it.)

Choose "Use Predefined Metric". This will allow you to choose the data based on the column headings in your sheet.

Finally, select the worksheet and column (text metric) that has the client names.

For the {{client}} placeholder, I chose the data source and metric as shown above.

To view the list that will be shown in the dropdown, click Preview.

For help setting up a dropdown menu, see How to create a dropdown menu

Built-in Slideform functions - {{fn:date}}

The next placeholder is the date function, {{fn:date}} . This placeholder will be filled with the date that the slides are generated. All you need to do is specify the date format. For a list of built in functions, see Built-in pragmas

Pull an image from the sheet - {{image:client logo}}

We will pull in the client logo from the Google Sheet into the {{image:client logo}} placeholder. All image placeholders must begin with the word "image:" and they must be associated with a shape in the slide template. For more, see How to import images.

We use a lookup to select the correct image from the sheet. To set this up, click "Preset a Value" and select the Google Sheet data source. Then, select Specify Query and type in the SQL-style query to look up the data from the sheet.

Here's the query I used:

Logo from Deal Summary where Account Name ==

where

Logo is the column that has the images

Deal Summary is the worksheet name

Account Name is the column that has the client names

{{client}} is the placeholder that we set up to hold the client name.

This means that once the {{client}} is selected from the dropdown, the logo image will be pulled from the corresponding row of the sheet.

You can also set the anchor position, cropping, and embed a link behind the image if you want.

Data lookups from a Google Sheet - {{close date}}

On Slide 2, there are several data placeholders that can be filled in from the Google Sheet.

{{client}} and {{image: client logo}} have already been mapped to data.
{{close date}} and all the other placeholders will be looked up based on the client name.

For {{close date}} , choose text metric as the input type, and click "Preset a Value". Screenshot 2025-01-14 at 2.02.41 PM

Next, select the data source and choose "Use Predefined Metric".

Select the worksheet and the column (text metric) that will fill {{close date}} . In this case it is column "Close Date" from the "Deal Summary" sheet in my Google Sheet.

Now we will filter the data in this column to only the data for our specific client. Screenshot 2025-01-14 at 2.06.11 PM

Under Filter the Data, select the column that has the client names from the sheet. This is the lookup column.
Then, choose {{client}} as the lookup key.

Now Slideform will pull the close date for the specific client that I set in the {{client}} placeholder!

I'll repeat this lookup logic for all the other client-specific placeholders on slide 2.

Pull data from a specific cell in the sheet - {{leads}}

Slide 3 includes placeholders that will be filled from the sales overview sheet. These data are hard-coded to specific cells in the Google Sheet and the cell will not change from one client to another or from week to week.

Click the "Preset a Value" button to set up the data linkage.

You can specify formatting for the values if desired. This is helpful if you have dollars, numbers or percents that need to be formatted.

Next you will select the data source. Under "Where is the data from?", choose your data file.

Select how to obtain the metrics as Query Data Source. Then choose the worksheet that contains the data and enter the cell (in Excel syntax) in the query box.

My query will pull data from the cell =Dashboard!H10

Repeat this setup for all the other placeholders on Slide 3 that pull data from a specific spreadsheet cell.

Pull in a Google Sheets chart - {{chart:wins this month}}

Screenshot 2025-01-14 at 2.22.08 PM

We will pull in a chart from the Google Sheet into the {{chart:wins this month}} placeholder. All chart placeholders must begin with the word "chart:" and they must be associated with a shape in the slide template. For more, see How to import charts.

To set this up, click "Preset a value" and select the data source, the worksheet and the chart. Charts are named according to the chart title in Google Sheets.

You can preview the chart to see that you have selected correctly.

Pull in an editable table of data - {{data:new accounts table}}

We will pull in a table from the Google Sheet into the {{data:new accounts table}} placeholder. All data table placeholders must begin with the word "data:" and they must be associated with a shape in the slide template. For more, see How to import tables.

To set this up, click "Preset a value" and select the data source. Then set to Query Data Source and choose the worksheet. Enter the cell range for the data table in Excel syntax, such as C27:H38.

The formatting, color, and font of the data in this table will be pulled into the slides.

If the cell range includes empty rows or columns beyond the data, you can trim those off with the "Slim Table" option.

Google Slides Results

Here is the output for a specific client: