Using Cube Decks in PowerPoint

Cube Decks turns your PowerPoint slides into a live narrative. Every visual you insert stays linked to Cube, so when your numbers change you update a filter, click Refresh, and your whole deck updates with the latest data. This article covers what you can do in Cube Decks and walks through common ways teams use it.

If you have not installed the add-in yet, start with Set up Cube Decks for PowerPoint.

How it works

When you insert a Cube visual, it lands on your slide as a high-quality image that stays linked to Cube. You can resize, crop, and position it just like any other picture, and it still updates whenever you refresh. Each visual carries a Powered by Cube watermark and a last-refreshed timestamp, so anyone viewing the deck can see the numbers are current.

Everything happens in the Cube panel docked beside your slide. It has three main areas:

1. Build: Create a new visual. Pick a chart type or describe what you want and let Cube's AI build it.
2. Existing: Reuse any Board widget you have already built in Cube. Add it to your slide as a visual that refreshes.
3. Filters: Set Time, Scenario, and Department once and apply them across your visuals, or change a single visual on its own.

At the top of the panel, Refresh updates your visuals with the latest data. Deck Settings holds the deck's color theme.

Insert a live visual

You can add a visual to your slide two ways.

Reuse an existing Board widget

1. In the panel, open the Existing tab.
2. Browse or search for the Board widget you want.
3. Select it and insert it onto the current slide.

Build a new visual with AI or from scratch

1. Open the Build tab.
2. Pick a chart type, or describe the chart you want in plain language, for example "monthly revenue by department for the current year."
3. Cube generates the visual on your deck's theme.
4. Insert it onto the slide.

Cube Decks supports ten widget types: Bar, Line, Pie, Donut, Combo, Waterfall, Metric, Trend, Table, and Row.

Set global filters

Global filters let you update many visuals at once from a single control.

1. In the panel, open Filters (Filter Management).
2. Choose the dimensions you want, for example Time, Scenario, and Department.
3. Apply. Cube pushes those selections out to the visuals in your deck.

A few things to know about how this works:

1. It is a push, not a saved filter. Applying global filters sends your selections to your visuals once, in the moment. It does not stay attached as an ongoing filter on the deck, so it will not automatically re-apply to visuals you add or change later.
2. It works the same way as Boards. A global filter only affects a visual if that dimension is already part of that visual's rows, columns, or filters. If a visual does not use the dimension you chose, it is left unchanged.
3. You can still adjust a single visual on its own after a push, without affecting the rest of the deck.

Refresh your deck

When your data changes in Cube, or when you change a filter, refresh to pull in the latest numbers.

1. Click Refresh in the panel.
2. Choose to refresh the current slide or the whole deck.
3. Every Cube visual updates with the latest data and shows a new last-refreshed timestamp.

Edit or remove a visual

1. Click any inserted Cube visual to select it, then open it in the panel.
2. From there, you can:
   1. Refresh just that visual.
   2. Edit in Cube to open and adjust the original widget.
   3. Delete from Slide to remove the visual from the deck.

Removing a visual from a slide does not change or delete the original widget in Cube.

Deck settings

Open Settings in the panel to control deck-level options, including the color theme, so your visuals match your organization's branding guidelines.

Examples

Here are three common ways finance teams use Cube Decks.

The one-click monthly business review

You maintain a monthly business review (MBR) deck with dozens of slides, all built from live Cube visuals. When the new month closes, you do not rebuild anything:

1. Open Filters in the panel.
2. Change Time from last month to the current month.
3. Click Refresh and choose the whole deck.

Every visual redraws from the latest numbers, and each shows a fresh timestamp. A deck that used to take hours to rebuild is current in a few clicks.

A live what-if in a board meeting

During a board meeting, someone asks what the picture looks like under a more conservative plan. Instead of switching to another file:

1. Open Filters.
2. Change Scenario from Base Case to Downside.
3. Click Refresh for the whole deck.

The entire narrative updates to the downside scenario in seconds, so you can walk the room through it live.

A self-service department report

A department leader keeps a budget versus actuals slide for their team:

1. They open the deck and click Refresh.
2. Cube checks their access and redraws the visuals with their team's latest numbers.

Because refresh always respects each person's access in Cube, the leader sees their own department's data and nothing outside their scope.

Your data stays secure

Cube Decks never gives anyone access to data they could not already see in Cube. Every time a deck refreshes, Cube checks the signed-in user's access before showing any numbers, so two things are always respected:

1. What you can do: whether your access lets you refresh only, or also build and insert visuals.
2. What you can see: the specific data your Cube access allows.

If someone opens a deck and does not have access to the data behind a particular visual, that visual will not refresh for them, while the rest of the deck refreshes normally with the data they are allowed to see. A deck never shows more than the person viewing it is permitted to see in Cube.

Permissions: who can do what

Access to Cube Decks maps to your Cube user type.

1. Business users can open a deck and refresh it against their own access. They cannot build or insert new visuals.
2. Finance users can build, insert, filter, and refresh.
3. Admins have full access to build, insert, filter, and refresh.

If you cannot build or insert visuals, check your user type with your Cube administrator.

Get help

For install help and common fixes, see Set up Cube Decks for PowerPoint. For anything else, contact Cube support or your customer team through the Cube Help Center.