Hey everyone! I’m trying to speed up my QBR process. Does anyone know a good way to make PDF decks for quarterly business reviews straight from Airtable? I’ve got all my data in there, but making presentations takes forever. It would be awesome if I could just push a button and get a nice-looking PDF. Any tips or tools you’ve used? I’m not super tech-savvy, so something simple would be great. Thanks for any help!
hey flyingeagle, have u tried piktochart? its pretty user-friendly n integrates w/ airtable. you can setup templates n it’ll pull ur data to make nice pdfs. not totally automatic but way faster than manual. might be worth checkin out if ur not super techy. good luck!
I’ve been using a combination of Airtable and Google Slides for my QBRs, and it’s been a game-changer. Here’s my process:
First, I created a Google Slides template with placeholders for all the key data points. Then, I set up an Airtable automation that exports the relevant data to a Google Sheet.
From there, I use the Slides API to populate my template with the data from the Sheet. It takes a bit of initial setup with some scripts, but once it’s running, it’s almost hands-off.
The best part is that I can still make manual tweaks in Slides before finalizing the PDF. It gives me the speed of automation with the flexibility of manual input when needed.
It’s not a one-click solution, but it’s cut my QBR prep time by about 70%. Plus, the consistency in format has been appreciated by my clients.
I’ve been in your shoes, and I found that using Airtable’s native integration with Zapier can be a game-changer for QBR automation. Here’s what worked for me:
Set up a Zap that triggers when you update a specific field in your Airtable base. Then, use a PDF generation tool like PDFMonkey or DocRaptor as the next step in your Zap. These tools can take your Airtable data and plug it into a pre-designed template.
The learning curve isn’t too steep, and once it’s set up, you’ll save hours. Just update your Airtable, and your QBR PDF will be generated automatically. It’s not perfect, but it’s a solid starting point that you can refine over time.
Remember to double-check the output initially to ensure everything’s coming through correctly. Good luck streamlining your process!