How to Connect PowerPoint Presentations and Reports to Airtable

In the past, we could access Airtable data via an API key, but that authentication method has been deprecated since the beginning of 2024. Let’s describe another option that works. Airtable now offers the option to connect via a Bearer token. Let me show you the steps you need to do before you can show your Airtable data on your PowerPoint presentations, slideshows and reporting.

First of all, we need to set up a bearer token which is basically similar to the old API key being used in your URL. Go to this page to generate a personal access token. There click the Create Token button to create an entry point for your PowerPoint presentations.

First, give it a proper name. Then set the scopes. Most likely you can select the first open from the list: data.records:read since we only need to read out data. And then select a base. You can choose to give permission to all Airtable’s datasheets or just select one from the list.

Click the Create Token button and the secret token is generated for you. Now carefully copy the token because we are going to use this token in our DataPoint connection.

Use our DataPoint plugin to set up a connection to your Airtable data and click on List of the Connections group. If you don’t have our DataPoint plugin yet, then you can get a free trial here.

Scroll down to the JSON data provider and click the Add Connection button.

As URL type in the CURL address of your Airtable datasheet that you can find at Airtable.

We use this URL for this article: https://api.airtable.com/v0/appoKBGXLsx7xAk4W/Work%20Items?maxRecords=3&view=All%20Work%20Items

To find out your URL to use, go to https://airtable.com/api and there you will find a list of all your Airtable datasheets.

Select the one that you want to use on your slides, scroll down to the ‘authentication’ section, and on the right you will see something like this:

Here you find the Curl address that you want to use. With our example here, this Curl address for DataPoint is:

https://api.airtable.com/v0/appoKBGXLsx7xAk4W/Work%20Items?maxRecords=3&view=All%20Work%20Items

At the connection properties, click the Advanded button. Set the authentication type to Bearer token and enter the secret bearer token from Airtable here. Make sure to take the Bearer token option and not the Bearer Authentication option.

Next click the Add Query button.

For our purpose, select the fields table and set a realistic or desired data refresh rate in seconds.

Click OK to close and now we have a real-time and direct link to your Airtable data.

From here on, you can use existing shapes of your PowerPoint slides, or add new shapes. You can use text boxes, tables, images, charts etc and link them directly to your Airtable data.