Updating the tombstone database with new deals, removing old ones, and sharing with your team is straightforward. You can add, edit or remove the tombstones shapes and update the metadata used for the filters. You can change, add or remove the filters themselves too.
Adding a tombstone
- Create your tombstone shape in PowerPoint and group the combination of textboxes/images etc.
- Open the tombstones pane.
- With the tombstone selected choose Insert Tombstones button.
Your tombstone is now in your database. See here to export it to your team.
Editing an existing tombstone
The tombstone database is composed of two elements:
- The underlying metadata driving the filters (e.g. deal size)
- The shape that gets inserted into the presentations (the look of the tombstone)
You can edit both. To update the underlying data:
- Search and find your existing tombstone within the database
- Hover over and click the Edit button
- Adjust the underlying data and press OK
To update the shape:
- Prepare the new tombstone shape in PowerPoint and select it
- Search and find your existing tombstone within the database
- Hover over and click the Edit button
- Check the box Replace by selected shape and click OK
Share your changes with the team
When you have made your changes and are ready to share:
- Click Import/Export Tombstones.
- Go to Share database with team and click the name of your database.
- The database will be exported to the shared folder of your team and users will automatically see the new database after they restart MS Office.
Editing the fields and filters
- Open the Tombstone database pane and go to Edit Tombstones Fields.
- Reorder, add, rename or delete the fields in the popup.
- Share your changes with the team using the export function.
- Text fields will not appear as a filter but are used for the free text search.
- Ticking the Is Required option means that no new tombstones can be inserted into the database without this data in this field.
Detailed filter information
There are 5 different types of metadata fields:
- Text: a free text field
- Date
- Boolean: can be true or false (or also N/A if not required)
- Double: a number, positive or negative, with or without decimal points
- ConstrainedText: a text field with limited possible values. The values are limited to what is actually in the database. To add a new possible value, add it when inserting/editing a Tombstone
All the field types will automatically be associated with a filter in the Filter tab except Text field which is not associated with a filter. Instead it is a field which you use when typing into the search bar Tombstone pane.
If a field is set as required, it cannot be left blank when inserting or editing a Tombstone in the database. If you add a new required field to your database the value of the newly added field is blank (or N/A) for all existing tombstones until you add that information to each one.