The Chrome extension is currently in beta. Reach out to your Technical Account Manager if you are interested in joining the beta.
With the Chrome extension, you can refresh a whole presentation/spreadsheet, or just the parts you care about, right where you are working (without having to regenerate another copy of the file from the Matik app).
This is useful when you want to:
- Update part of a deck quickly. Tweak or refresh a single slide or element in a presentation you already generated, without regenerating the entire deck.
- Keep content live in place. Build something meant to stay current, such as a Google Sheets dashboard, and refresh it on demand or on a schedule.
- Stay in context. Refresh from inside the document you are working in, rather than switching back to Matik's UI.
Getting Started
- Install the Matik Chrome extension. If you haven't already, install the extension
- Log in and authenticate. Log in with your Matik credentials, and authenticate to your Google account if you haven't already.
Refreshing a Presentation
Refresh by opening the Chrome extension on the Google Slides you wish to update.
- Open the file you want to refresh. Refresh works on "live" Google Slides files-- files that contain Matik tags but are not currently powering a template. Content generated from Matik automatically maintains live data connections based on its template.
- Open the Dashboard. With the file open, open the extension and select Dashboard from the extension's action menu. If the file has content available to be refreshed, it will be listed here.
You can refresh at four levels:
- Entire presentation. Refresh every connection in the deck.
- Current slide. Choose Current slide from the dropdown to refresh only the slide you are on. This option is available when the current slide has connections.
- A specific slide. Open the three-dot Slide options menu on any slide in the Dashboard list and choose Refresh Slide.
- A single element. Click a connected element on the slide to open its tag panel, then choose Refresh all to refresh the connections on that element.
While a refresh runs, the extension shows its progress. When it finishes, you'll see success toast, and the data will update in place.
Refreshing a Spreadsheet
Refreshing a Google Sheets works similarly.
- Open the file you want to refresh. Refresh works on "live" Google Sheets files-- files that contain Matik tags but are not currently powering a template. Content generated from Matik automatically maintains live data connections based on its template.
- Open the Dashboard. With the file open, open the extension and select Dashboard from the extension's action menu. If the file has content available to be refreshed, it will be listed here.
You can refresh at four levels.
- Entire spreadsheet. Use the Refresh button, or choose Entire spreadsheet from the dropdown, to refresh every connection in the file.
- Current sheet. Choose Current sheet from the dropdown to refresh only the active sheet. This option is available when the active sheet has connections.
- A specific sheet. Open the three-dot Sheet options menu on any sheet in the Dashboard list and choose Refresh Sheet.
- A single cell. Open the three-dot menu on a tagged cell in the connection list and choose Refresh Tag.
When the refresh finishes, values update in place and you'll see a confirmation toast.
Providing Inputs
If any of the dynamic content in the scope you are refreshing takes inputs (for example, an account name or a date range), the extension prompts you for them before it refreshes. You'll be taken to a short form to populate the required inputs.
Once you have populated the required inputs, you can click Refresh to continue. Your selected content will refresh by re-querying the data with the input values you provided.
Scheduling Automatic Refreshes
Below the Refresh button, the Dashboard includes a scheduling card (Schedule Presentation Refresh for Slides, Schedule Spreadsheet Refresh for Sheets). Use it to keep a file up to date on its own, which is especially handy for a live Sheets dashboard.
- Turn the schedule toggle on.
- Click Edit to open the schedule options.
- Choose a frequency: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Weekly lets you pick the day of the week; Monthly lets you pick the 1st, the 15th, or the last day of the month.
- Choose the time of day.
- Click Apply.
The card then summarizes the schedule (for example, Daily at 9:00AM). Turn the toggle off at any time to stop automatic refreshes.
Note: Scheduled refreshes use the input values already saved with the file. They do not prompt for inputs. If a file's dynamic content requires inputs, make sure the saved values are the ones you want before you rely on a schedule.
Limitations
- Templates cannot be refreshed. Refresh is for generated files. If the file is used as a template in Matik, the extension shows a template banner instead of the refresh controls.
- Google Slides and Google Sheets only. Refresh is not available for Google Docs or other file types.
- Speaker-note connections don't refresh in generated decks. Dynamic content placed in slide speaker notes is not refreshed as part of a live-document refresh.
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