Build an extension that adds new powers to Coda docs for a chance at $20,000 in prizes.
In my opinion Apps Script is a somewhat undervalued skill. So much of the world runs on spreadsheets, and many of those sheets are glued together using Apps Script. Well the good news is that your Apps Script skills are the perfect fit for a virtual hackathon running now: the Coda Packathon.
Coda is a new kind of doc, built for teams, sort of like a cross between Sheets, Docs, and Sites. Instead of a scripting language Coda includes Packs, a simple plugin mechanism that lets you enhance the core features of the doc. We just launched the platform, and to celebrate we’re running a six-week virtual hackathon to see who can build the best Packs.
Writing a Pack is a lot like writing an Apps Script:
You can create a Pack from start to finish in your browser (use pack.new)
Packs are written using JavaScript (technically TypeScript, but you don’t need to use types)
Packs can be used to add a custom formula, sync data into a table, update a record in an API.
You can learn more about the Packathon and register here: coda.devpost.com.
In this episode of Google Workspace Add On Walkthroughs (GWAOw!), we take a look at ImportFromWeb by NoDataNoBusiness.
ImportFromWeb is a powerful web scraping tool for Google Sheets that allows you to grab data from any website. The creators call it IMPORTXML on steroids.
The latest episode from Scott Donald’s GWAOw! is now available. As explained by Scott ImportFromWeb is a Google Sheets add-on which allows users to use the custom function to import data from other websites into Google Sheets.
Even though this add-on is primarily used to add a custom function to Google Sheets the developers, NoDataNoBusiness, have taken the time to use the sidebar with some useful UI elements to help users get started.
Master the QUERY function, the most powerful function in Google Sheets, to become a more effective data analyst
Friend of Pulse and Google Sheets guru, Ben Collins, has a new course ‘The QUERY Function in Google Sheets’. The QUERY function it lets you perform various data manipulations making it easy to reshape, aggregate and explore your data in Google Sheets. The course is designed to be suitable for everyone from beginner to advanced who are interested in ways to work more effectively with your data.
If you are not familiar with the QUERY function Ben provides one example of what is possible in Sheets Tip 204: How To Use Dates In The QUERY Function (check the linked post in this Sheet Tip for an example worksheet).
Bonus:Sheets Tip 204 includes a 50% discount on the course valid until Friday 20 May 2022 at midnight EDT.
Finally, if you are interested in using the QUERY language in Google Apps Script it is possible! Below is some code used in this copy of Ben’s example workbook based on:
// based on https://gist.github.com/tanaikech/053d3ebbe76fa7c0b5e80ea9d6396011#sample-script
function myFunction() {
const doc = SpreadsheetApp.getActive()
const spreadsheetId = doc.getId(); // or set another Spreadsheet ID.
const sheetId = doc.getSheetByName('Data').getSheetId(); // or set another Sheet ID from Spreadsheet ID.
const query = "select C, B where B > date '2000-01-01' and B <= date '2002-12-31'"; // your QUERY
const url = `https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/${spreadsheetId}/gviz/tq?tqx=out:csv&gid=${sheetId}&tq=${encodeURI(query)}&access_token=${ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()}`;
const res = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url,);
console.log(res.getContentText());
const array = Utilities.parseCsv(res.getContentText());
console.log(array);
// SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet(); // This comment line is put for automatically detecting the scopes if directly adding a spreadsheet ID.
}
GWAOw! is a YouTube series that explores the best Google Workspace Add Ons in the Google Marketplace to help you learn what is out there.
This new YouTube series from Scott Donald at yagisanatode.com will hopefully be a great way to see and learn how other developers have implemented Google Workspace Add-ons, picking up UI tips and tricks. For the first episode Scott takes a look at Workbook Statistics by Sourabh Choraria. Scott is planning one/two episodes a month and if you have published your own add-ons you can find out about getting it featured in GWAOw!.
Some ideas are bad, and then sometimes there are ideas so bad they actually go back around to being genius — we think we’ve come across one of those. Yes! We have an end to end blockchain working entirely off of a google sheet: transaction broadcasting, mining, wallets, gossip — all of it! ShiitCoin is (obviously) a troll project not meant to be rEaL mOnEy 💴 but we’re hoping to farm some internet points there’s some educational value to exploring the barebones of a blockchain which we’ll share here.
In pre-pandemic times I used to give a talk entitled ‘..you can do that with Apps Script’, which includes some more of the extreme examples of projects people tackle with Google Apps Script. This project by nalinbhardwaj (Nalin Bhardwaj) and Adhyyan1252 (Adhyyan Sekhsaria) definitely falls into the fun/interesting category and who knows you may find some interesting code snippets in the associated Github repo that might be useful … but no guarantees.
As this amazing year comes to an end, I decided to note down all my blogs, videos in the past year. This has been an amazing year for me academically and professionally. I have passed all my engineering exams and am in my 3rd year of engineering. I am also constantly helping my college automate internal processes using Google Apps Script and Google Workspace. You can check them out in the blog link given below
Looking at his summary post from Aryan Irani we’ve clearly not been able to keep up here on Pulse with the volume of content that they have published. The summary post linked here is an opportunity to review some of Aryan’s top community contributions from this year.
In this course, we will be covering the basics of Google Apps Script and working our way by working with Google Sheets, Google Workspace API’s and more. After working with variables, operators, loops in Google Apps Script, we will be working with Google Sheets, where we will start out by getting and setting values in Google Sheets, followed by doing some amazing projects in Google Sheets and Google Apps Script. After working with Google Sheets, we will work with Google Forms, Google Classroom, YouTube and more.
It’s always pleasing to see new Google Apps Script courses being published. The latest one we’ve spotted has been created by Aryan Irani and hosted on Udemy. We’ve not taken this course but the landing page contains an overview and previews of some of the video content.
The next episode of Totally Unscripted is scheduled usual time Wednesday 24 November. For the episode we are looking at ‘Building successful Add-ons for Google Workspace’, joined by two top add-on developers, Romain Vialard, Founder of Scriptit & John McGowan, CEO of Unicorn Magic, and Elena Kingbo, Program Manager on the Google Workspace Platform team and involved in the Google Workspace Marketplace:
The Google Workspace Marketplace offers users and administrators alike a wide variety of third party solutions that extend Google Workspace. Creating a successful add-on for the Marketplace takes more than a bit of luck to stand out from the crowd. In this episode we will chat with two purveyors of well-known add-ons Romain Vialard, Founder of Scriptit & John McGowan, CEO of Unicorn Magic, to hear what it takes to create a thriving business in the world of Workspace Add-ons. Also joining us will be Elena Kingbo, Program Manager on the Google Workspace Platform team, who helps guide developers through their Add-on journey.
As always the show is broadcast live and you can ask questions via chat, but also interested to hear in advance any of your burning questions for our panel using the comments section below or tweeting them to @AppsScriptInfo. What are your pain points? If you haven’t published a Workspace Add-on what are the blockers? Or anything else you would like to hear more?
For our next episode of Totally Unscripted we look at Google Chat, specifically Google Chat Apps. As part of this we will be joined by Aidha Shaikh who leads the Chat App strategy at Google. This episode will be broadcast live and you can join the conversation in the YouTube Live chat.
Chat bots (aka Chat Apps) offer developers a framework for building solutions within conversations and direct messages inside of Google Chat. As Google Chat has become a more integral part of Google Workspace, Chat Apps have evolved to offer developers new capabilities which in turn creates opportunities for richer interactions, integrations and workflows. In this episode, we will discuss “What’s new in the world of Chat Apps” with Aidha Shaikh, Product Manager on the Google Workspace Platform team, who leads the Chat App strategy at Google.
We welcome two amazing members from the DevRel (Developer Relations) team this episode.
Charles Maxson is a Developer Advocate at Google where focuses on inspiring developers of all types to build solutions that leverage Google Workspace as a platform.
Steve Bazyl is a Developer Relations Engineer and Advocate at Google and has worked with various Google Workspace APIs and partners for over a decade. Google Workspace Developer Links
Totally Unscripted co-host, Charles Maxson, and regular guest Steve Bazyl recently featured on the Google Workspace Recap podcast talking about recent trends and development within the Google Workspace developer ecosystem.
