PowerPoint slide catalog

PowerPoint plugin for managing slide templates

eWorks has implemented the "PowerPoint slide catalog" for a telecommunications service provider - a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in for the central management of slide templates for 4,000 workstations.

The "PowerPoint slide catalog" enables company management to develop CI-compliant slide templates centrally and distribute them to the workstations. The "slide browser" provides employees with an intuitive tool for clicking together and arranging slide templates. CI-compliant presentation hulls are created easily and in just a few seconds with the "PowerPoint slide catalog".

Company management is free to provide employees with pure slide templates or ready-made slides. Slide templates contain the CI-compliant design, but are otherwise empty and are filled with content by the employee. Ready-made slides already contain specific information that can be incorporated by employees but may not be changed - for example, the latest quarterly figures. For complex issues that extend over several slides, complete slide sequences can also be stored, which can be used in their entirety by employees in their PowerPoint presentations.

The slides and slide templates are maintained by an administrator in a central repository, i.e. in a central storage facility. Employees do not have the option of making changes to these slides. The "PowerPoint slide catalog" prevents the large number of different layout variations and slides that would otherwise be unavoidable over time.

In addition to the slide browser function, the three functions "Color palette", "Text field" and "File properties" have been implemented. These functions also serve to implement the corporate CI in PowerPoint:

"Color palette" allows company management to centrally define the company colors and enables employees to consistently color PowerPoint objects on all workstations.

"Text field" enables company management to centrally define the PowerPoint text field (colors, indents, bullets) and employees to insert this CI-compliant text field into PowerPoint presentations at the touch of a button.

The "File properties" dialog opens with every new presentation and queries meta information such as author and title. Each time a presentation is saved, a unique and consistent file name is generated from the meta information for storage in the company CRM, see screenshot. Some fields such as "Author" are automatically pre-filled from the company user administration in order to minimize typing and increase acceptance by employees.

This was implemented using a VBA application. Particular attention was paid to ensuring that the maintenance and expansion of the slide repository can be carried out by the client's own trained personnel. This is achieved by using simple and intuitive configuration options (folder structures in the repository, bitmap graphics and INI files).

The "PowerPoint slide catalog" was developed in autumn 2006, rolled out to 4,000 workstations on 22.12.2006 and went from the test phase to the production phase just in time for the turn of the year. The "PowerPoint slide catalog" is a joint project between eWorks (technical implementation) and concept layout design (graphic design).

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