Google Apps Script can be executed by time-driven triggers. This is one of the very important points for taking cloud computing. But, the scenarios using time-driven triggers are different for each user, and there are a lot of situations for using time-driven triggers. But, when a script for implementing time-driven triggers is developed, each script is different and complicated. In this report, I would like to introduce easily managing time-driven triggers using a Google Apps Script library.
In Google Apps Script time-driven triggers are a powerful way to automate tasks including Google Sheets. However, managing them can be difficult, especially if you have a lot of triggers and need triggers to run at different times and frequencies. The TriggerApp library from Kanshi Tanaike makes this a lot easier and this post includes a number of examples that are easy to copy/modify for your own script projects. The post covers the following scenarios:
Execute 2 functions at specific dates and times
Execute a function with a specific cycle between specific times between specific dates
Execute 3 functions with a specific cycle between specific times on weekdays
Send an email on a birthday every year
Execute specific functions on specific weekdays in a week
Execute 6 different functions every 10 minutes from “09:00:00” to “11:50:00” in order
Opening hours of Google Form from 09:00 to 17:00 on Weekdays
Opening Hours of Google Spreadsheet from 09:00 to 17:00 on Weekdays
Execute specific functions at 09:00 on Monday to Friday at the beginning of specific months
The source code for the library is on GitHub and includes documentation on all the methods it uses.
This is a sample script for retrieving and putting values for PDF Forms using Google Apps Script.
We’ve featured a couple of posts from Kanshi Tanaike on Pulse with solutions for handling/manipulating PDF Documents with Google Apps Script. This post on retrieving values from PDF Documents is just one in a series of recent contributions from Kanshi looking at how Google Apps Script can be used with PDFs:
Last month, OpenAI announced Function calling, “a new way to more reliably connect GPT’s capabilities with external tools and APIs”. Super useful ❤️ and we decided to integrate that with Google Apps Script.
Following on from yesterday’s Pulse post which highlighted Ben Collins reflections on ‘What can AI do for you as a Google Sheets user? Is the hype justified?’, here is a contribution from another Apps Script expert, Romain Vialard, announcing a ChatGPT library for Google Apps Script.
The source post highlights a number of examples, including the standard ‘prompt’ calling. Where this post gets very interesting is integration with Open AI’s function calling features:
In an API call, you can describe functions to gpt-3.5-turbo-0613 and gpt-4-0613, and have the model intelligently choose to output a JSON object containing arguments to call those functions. The Chat Completions API does not call the function; instead, the model generates JSON that you can use to call the function in your code.
To illustrate this below is a screenshot of a very slightly extended example, which has a Google Sheet with the headings email, name and tip topic. The functions are described to ChatGPT and in the case of sendMessage() the parameters it requires. The ChatGPTApp library handles the functions and in the case of the getContactsList() uses it to pass the Google Sheet data for ChatGPT to format a JSON response to correctly call the sendMessage() function.
I found it took me a while to start understanding what is going on and would recommend experimenting with the library and sample code to get a sense what is possible.
See how AI tools work with Google Sheets to boost your productivity. Covers ChatGPT, Google Bard, and AI add-ons.
A very informative post from Ben Collins, discussing how AI can be used to automate tasks, identify patterns, and make predictions in the context of Google Sheets. Ben provides several examples of how Generative AI can be used to improve the way you can interact with data in spreadsheets from helping with formula to generating and improving data.
As Ben points out in the post users have benefited from AI in Google Sheets for a number of years with features like Explore. Perhaps the biggest recent change is exposing Large Language Models as a service, with users able to directly access the ‘prompt’ to generate output.
Google Workspace offers tools for productivity and collaboration for the ways we work. It also offers a rich set of APIs, SDKs, and no-code/low-code tools to create apps and integrate workflows that integrate directly into the surfaces across Google Workspace.
Here’s a very useful recap of recent announcements that should interest Workspace Developers. The post covers a range of Google products cover Docs, Chat, Meet and more. For developers particularly interested in finding out might is coming for Google Apps Script there are a couple of announcements:
The eagerly awaited project history capability for Google Apps Script will soon be generally available. This feature allows users to view the list of versions created for the script, their content, and different changes between the selected version and the current version.
It was also announced that admins will be able to add an allowlist for URLs per domain to help safer access controls and control where their data can be sent externally.
Details for both of these are still to hit the Google Workspace Updates blog, but with Next around the corner hopefully there will be more information very soon.
Make your team acknowledged when there is a new eventEven though a data scientist can do coding, it doesn’t mean that we have to code all the time. In some use case, I found out that no-code development tools benefits us as it reduces time to develop applications for collecting data or small systems for uncomplex internal uses. I have developed several AppSheet applications which help us automate works, make tasks paperless and trackable by records.
We’ve featured a couple of examples of integrating with Slack using Apps Script. Here’s a variation using AppSheet to do some of the heavy lifting with the data automation. To push data to Slack the solution uses AppSheet’s Apps Script integration. I’ve not tested but I’m sure you could skip the Apps Script integration and use AppSheets webhooks feature.
A Chat space membership authorization workflow built using Google Forms, Sheets and Apps Script. … In the coming sections, we’ll build a workflow for process managers to review and authorize membership requests sent by users willing to join a predefined set of chat spaces.
Lots of talk about Meta’s new Threads … is there an API for that. Meanwhile Pablo Felip has been busy putting together this very comprehensive tutorial which explains how you can use Google Forms as part of a process to administer Google Chat Spaces membership.
The API call spaces.members.create is relatively straightforward when compared to the amount of effort to setup the Google Cloud project. This is all covered in the source post and the code provided can easily be modified to suit other worksflows.
Learn how to automatically transcribe audio and video files in Gmail messages with the help of OpenAI speech recognition API and Google Apps Script
Amit Agarwal highlights a no-code solution for transcribing audio in Gmail attachments available in his ‘Save Gmail to Google Drive’ Google Sheets Add-on. As part of this he shares the code and tips for transcribing audio files using OpenAI’s Whisper API. When you look at the snippet provided you’ll see once the audio file is in Google Drive it is very easy to use the Whisper API to get a transcript.
Text-to-speech services aren’t new, but approaches and larger training datasets are improving accuracy and if you prefer to work in the Google ecosystem you can find out more about Cloud Speech-to-Text.
We are excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of our native data store: AppSheet database. Our goal is to blend the simplicity of a table-driven data editing interface with the performance and scale of a relational database for non-technical users.
During testing, AppSheet database was faster than Sheets for processing adds, updates, and deletes of larger tables. In other words, the performance benefits of AppSheet databases are more apparent for a table with 50,000 rows compared to a table with 1,000 rows. AppSheet databases also have better support for concurrent edits.
It’s also worth noting that quick sync is enabled by default for all apps backed by AppSheet databases, even for security filters, so data updates automatically for app users.
Google AppSheet Databases went into public preview in October 2022, the announcement and context being covered in the Pulse post ‘Introducing AppSheet databases: Build data driven apps for Google Workspace‘. The recommendation while AppSheet databases were in preview was not to use them for production as there may have been breaking changes, which limited how much testing I could do, but I still found the occasional prototype project to give them a try. As noted in the general availability announcement the performance is more noticeable on databases with more rows. Where I saw big gains were around ‘quick sync’, particularly when making changes using the AppSheet API.
Something to keep in mind before lifting/shifting your existing Google Sheet based AppSheet apps are the usage limits. For example, Google Workspace customers eligible for the AppSheet Core licence at no additional cost are limited to 2,500 rows per database and 10 databases. The 2,500 rows is also the total amount across all tables in a database, for example, you will hit your quota if 1 database has 5 tables with 500 rows. Moving up to AppSheet Enterprise Standard increases the limit to 200,000 rows with a current maximum of 50,000 rows per table. In the later case Google have said this is a current technical limit and they are looking at increasing this soon. For AppSheet Core users it doesn’t sound like Google will be increasing the quotas anytime soon so it is worth making sure your data source and/or licence aligns with your anticipated data needs. There is an active discussion about usage limits in the source post.
Who takes the notes ? Simple question we always ask at the begining of the meeting, maybe it will be over in a near future with Generative AI. Using Meet recording, included in the Google Workspace licences, we can generate the transcript of the meeting with Google Speech to Text API and then generate the minutes.
Lots of chatter around ‘Gen AI’, but cutting through the hype and, in particular, the Platform-As-A-Service opportunities created with generally available Large Language Models (LLM) opens lots of new doors for Workspace Developers.
This example from fellow Google Developer Expert, Stéphane Giron, is an area I think has the most potential, using LLMs in Google Workspace Add-ons such as Gmail, Docs, Calendar etc. With Google’s Vertex AI LLMs there is really opportunity to create powerful solutions whilst preserving data sovereignty. Exciting times!
