Indico Launches Tool for Regular PowerPoint Reports

UK-based res tech firm Indico Labs has released its first PowerPoint add-in, SlideMap, which automates the production of repeatable reports such as trackers, multi-audience studies and standardised research products. The tool includes an AI Agent that writes data queries for users.

Indico Labs was founded in 2018 by Majeed Saheb-Zadha, a former YouGov Python Programmer and Senior Data Analyst at Discovery Inc. the firm's original SlideGen tool is a self-service application allowing users to create PowerPoint reports directly from their Excel tables; and the firm also offers Dashbox, which can be used to convert tabulated data into an interactive online chart-book, combining the functionality of a dashboard with the layout of a traditional report.

The new SlideMap solution moves the work of producing recurring reports into PowerPoint itself - this work includes re-charting every slide, rerunning significance tests and other analysis, and rechecking formatting for each wave. Users need only connect each chart, table and text box in their template to their data once - charts are immediately refreshed when a new data file arrives for the next wave. SlideMap, built on Microsoft's Office Add-ins platform, is aimed at research ops teams and those comfortable with writing SPSS syntax or complex survey scripts, although no coding experience is needed.

Chief Strategy Officer Adam Baker (pictured) states: 'Repeat reporting is where research teams lose the most time, and it's also where mistakes creep in. We built SlideMap to solve that problem for our own team first. Because it lives inside PowerPoint, researchers can keep working in their own templates, and the setup stays with the file. You build a tracker once and it's ready for every wave after that. The same concept can be applied to international studies, or any reporting where the template remains static.'

Indico says the new tool works across platforms - on Windows and Mac, and in PowerPoint for the web - is easy to share around colleagues, and does not slow the charts program down. It also reads significance test results from the data or calculates them, at 90%, 95% or 99% confidence; adds Excel-style rules and heat maps to PowerPoint tables and charts; and includes one-click tools for significance testing, sorting, colour palettes, logos on charts and label clean-up.

Edward Lidbetter, Chief Product Owner at Indico Labs says the firm chose specifically not to use AI for the overall task of repopulating reports: 'Tracker reporting depends on doing exactly the same thing, the same way, every wave. An AI agent might get a report right twice, then decide to change something on the third run. In a tracker, even a small deviation is a big problem. With SlideMap, the AI helps write the query, but the query is what runs. It doesn't change unless the researcher changes it, so they know exactly what they'll get every time.'

SlideMap is available now through an early access programme.

Web site: www.indicolabs.io .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.