Has anyone successfully used SAP Business Objects Live Office with Microsoft PowerPoint. We have been asked to see if this is useful or viable tool.
I found the following on SAP’s website, but am not sure if this is even a viable for using Webi reports. Any experience with this is greatly appreciated.
http://www.sap.com/netherlands/about/events/justitie/pdf/businessobjects_live_office_SAP.pdf
cschwab123 
(BOB member since 2011-07-15)
you can export your dashabord as Powerpoint and can also upload some external powerpoint in your dashbaord. Is this you are looking for.
abhi65741 (BOB member since 2011-08-12)
Hi,
We are using Live Office (LO) with MS PowerPoint (PPT) quite extensively with positive experience. We have several PPT reports, mostly top-management reports, with 20 to 30 pages and at least as many LO objects included. The business appreciates the PPT format that can be present instantly in meetings and easily printed out to study the reports while travelling.
Using Webi (or Crystal) reports as data source - instead of a universe query - is advantageous because more advanced functionalities of the reporting tool (formulas, variables, charts, rankings, etc.) are available. However, not all functionalities work. In Webi, for example, drill filters are not supported by LO. Also, some problems with sections are known. (See, e.g., post 86079 or post 921077.)
If your Webi report takes a long time to refresh, I would suggest to schedule the report in advance and then use the data saved in the report to refresh the PPT document (in the refresh options choose “Use Report Saved Data” instead of “On Demand”).
What usually takes lots of time is the formatting of tables in PPT. So, optimise your tables in Webi to have as few objects as possible to import into PPT (avoid splitting your tables in Webi into too many pieces). Do as much as possible of the formatting already in Webi. Once you have formatted your LO objects in PPT make sure that report formatting is not applied when refreshing the report (again in the refresh options).
Indeed, when having many tables the formatting in PPT is the bulk of the work. This, in turn, reduces the agility of the solution, which might be a no-go if the report layout needs to be changed frequently and very short reaction times are needed.
Working with BO XI 3.1, I noticed that merging cells is not working: Cells merged in a Webi table are not taken over in PPT. On the other hand, merging cells in the PPT table will cause the cell to loose its connection to the Webi report, i.e. it will remain empty after the next refresh. So, do not merge cells using LO. (I don’t know whether the situation in this respect has improved in BI 4.)
In summary, despite some restrictions in the functionalities, I think Webi connected to PPT via LO can be a very useful combination that is much appreciated by users that are used to present their figures in PPT.
Best regards,
Marco
mlonghi 
(BOB member since 2011-03-18)