AppsScriptPulse

Unlock the power of your data with no-code! Join the CTS AppSheet Hackathon at the Google London 08 February 2024 

Be part of our AppSheet Hackathon Series in 2024! Join us at the Google office in London for this in-person event in February. Find out more.

My employer CTS/Appsbroker is hosting a free AppSheet Hackathon in Google Office in London on 08 February 2024. This in-person event is the first of four we are planning this year designed to bring both new and existing AppSheet users together to learn and share.

For new users there will be a guided ‘no-code along’ to help you get started, followed by a hackathon with on-hand support. You can find out more including registration by following the link (if you are able to attend my tip would be bring a work colleague as this will help you bottom out your business use cases). I’ll be attending the event so if you are able to attend please come and say ‘hi’.

Source: AppSheet Hackathon – CTS

Totally Unscripted: How developers are shaping the future with Google Workspace and GenAI – 24 January, 2024 at 1200 PT / 1500 ET / 2000 GMT

For the next live broadcast of Totally Unscripted we will be exploring how Vertex AI and other GenAI solutions can be used to extend the capabilities of Google Workspace with targeted solutions that integrate seamlessly with Google Workspace Add-ons, Editor Add-ons, Chat apps, Drive apps, and more!

In this episode we will be joined by a panel of expert guests: Donato Meli (Workspace Go-To-Market at Google), Mohammad Al-Ansari (Developer Advocate (Partnerships) at Google), and Allen Firstenberg (Project Guru at Objective Consulting, Inc).

As always the show is broadcast live and you can ask questions via the YouTube chat, but also interested to hear in advance any of your burning questions for our panel using the comments section below.

We will be LIVE on 24 January, 2024 at 1200 PT / 1500 ET / 2000 GMT

Show Live/Recording link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPrWpV_bf4c

Totally Unscripted Returns! Since We’ve Been Gone: A Recap – 10 January, 2024 at 1200 PT / 1500 ET / 2000 GMT 

WE ARE BACK!!! Totally Unscripted returns for more Google Workspace Developer community chat about new features, popular solution trends, best practices, the Google Workspace Marketplace and everything else related to Google Workspace development.

To kick off the return of Totally Unscripted for Season 5, in this episode the TU crew will take a look back at some of the more significant updates and additions involving the Google Workspace Platform “Since they’ve been gone!”

As always the show is broadcast live and you can ask questions via chat, but also interested to hear in advance any of your questions using the comments section below.

Show Live/Recording link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Z3BcAjRKk

[Event] Connected Workers: Using AppSheet to bring the frontline and head office together – Online October 19, 2023 at 14:00 UTC

Join us for an exciting showcase event with Google presenting an AppSheet demo developed to connect frontline workers with head office.

On October 19, 2023 at 14:00 UTC you can join me for a free online live webinar with Tony Martin, Google Workspace specialist and Dominic Parkes, Google Workspace Customer Engineer at Google to discuss a demo app created in Google AppSheet to help bring frontline/deskless workers and head office together more efficiently.

This session is an opportunity to discover how AppSheet can be used to make it easy to administer everyday business tasks such as: reporting sickness, managing shifts, payslips and HR records, onboarding and training. We’ll be discussing the benefits of using AppSheet to solve this problem and getting Tony and Dom’s top tips when it comes to Google AppSheet app creation.

Follow the source links to reserve your place…

Source: Connected Workers: Using AppSheet to bring the frontline and head office together – CTS Website

Management of rich text cell formatting in Google Sheets with Google Apps Script

In order to add and delete a text for the rich text in a cell, it is required to create a script while the current text style is kept. This is actually complicated. In this post, I would like to introduce the enriched management of rich text on Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script. In order to enrich the management of Rich Text using Google Apps Script, I created a library RichTextAssistant.

Some very clever work from Kanshi Tanaike which can help with the management of cell text formatting in Google Sheets.  The RichTextAssistant Apps Script library included in the post has some nice methods for both handling and preserving cell text formatting. It’s worth spend a little time checking the various samples provided to see what is possible and how these might enhance one of your own script projects.  If you are curious the source code for the library is also on GitHub and linked from the post.

Source: Enriched Management of Rich Text on Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script

Register for an online AppSheet ‘no-code’ along with Tim McLardy and Martin Hawksey 3-5 May, 2023

Did you know? We’re offering 20% off registrations for our FIRST public AppSheet no-code-along! ⭐️

With AppSheet, you can simplify business processes without ever needing to write a single line of code. This can help you out if you have users managing data on mobile devices, getting lost in spreadsheets, or even still using pen and paper!

Our two part course will include hands-on experience of building a simple app alongside our in-house expert Martin Hawksey as well as covering all the basics you need to get your creative juices flowing!

Don’t sleep on it, this offer is only available until the end of March. Sign up today to secure your discount

If you are still unsure where to start with Google’s no/low code platform, AppSheet, on 3 + 5 May I’ll be joining Tim McLardy to help you get started on your journey as part of our two part ‘no-code along’. There is a discount if you register in March and Tim and I will be working extra hard to make sure you get the most out of the session.

Source: AppSheet No-Code-Along

Google Apps Script trends in Stack Overflow for 2022

From the above results, it can say that the current Google Apps Script has still been useful for a lot of users. But, the number of questions for one answerer is increased proportionally to the square of the year. Furthermore, the ratio of the solved questions for the total questions in 2022 is lower than that of 2021. So, in order to improve these issues, it is considered that growing answerers will be one of the important factors for the selectivity of Google Apps Script by users.

Kanshi Tanaike has recently published the 5th annual review of Google Apps Script tagged questions and answers on Stack Overflow [google-apps-script] to include data from 2022. This type of data always has to be read with caution. For example, whilst the total number of questions has again declined this year it could be argued this is because there is now a much bigger published knowledge base of both official and community resources. Declines in the number of people answering questions is more concerning. If you are someone who contributes to Stack Overflow a big thank you!

Source: Trend of google-apps-script Tag on Stackoverflow 2023

Tech Recruiter Tries Coding pt. 2 — Google Apps (Type)Script

Image credit: Unknown

Talking CRMs, Databases, and how to ditch them; this time within the Lead Generation domain. Bonus: pitfalls of a 90s computing mindset! 😅

Previously on Pulse we shared Rafael Romo Mulas’ post, Tech Recruiter Tries Coding. Rafael has recently published part 2 in which they highlight their journey into VS Code, clasp and TypeScript. If you are unfamiliar with TypeScript its a language which transpiles into JavaScript and basically designed to help you write better code. Rafael notes:

… the main difference is you are forced to be more precise, which avoids running into stupid errors! Therefore, to my surprise, it is actually easier to code in TypeScript than JavaScript, even more so for a beginner like me, because:

  • There is not much to “unlearn” from JS, if you just started anyway.
  • You’re alerted when values can be of a type that would cause errors.
  • You’re forced to do something about it, basically debugging in advance.

You can read more about Rafael’s journey in the linked article

Source: Tech Recruiter Tries Coding pt. 2 — Google Apps (Type)Script

The 5th-year Anniversary of Yagisanatode! A [Google Apps Script Developer Expert] Origin Story

Learn the origin story of a solopreneur, Scott and how he built Yagisanatode over the past 5 years. …

“We had just started the second semester of a university course that I was instructing on and my operations director pulled me out of my first class for the semester within an hour and asked me to teach the advanced course. I lasted a day…”

Continuing on from yesterday’s theme of ‘code zero’ to ‘code hero’ here is another origin story this time from Scott Donald. The EDU sector is a rich vein when it comes to producing ‘noisy’ Google Apps Script developers. There are probably a number of reasons why this sector produces so many of the most impactful community contributors. Education, particularly assessment, is so admin intensive it’s maybe not that surprising that stories similar to Scott’s are quite common, but perhaps the biggest factor is educators like to educate!

Source: The 5th-year Anniversary of Yagisanatode! An Origin Story. – Yagisanatode

Tech Recruiter Tries Coding — Google Apps Script

Photo by Mohammad Rahmani on Unsplash

After years of working adjacent to software development, first in sales and then in recruitment, I abruptly decided to take the plunge into the other side, and start coding to automate or speed up tasks of my everyday job.

The idea came by when I started using Google Sheets more heavily, and realized how powerful it is by itself, and how much more it can become with the addition of Google Apps Script, which I discovered to my surprise is actually modern JavaScript.

Sharing this post as hopefully it’s encouragement if you are new or a beginner to Google Apps Script that with some time and effort you can begin building your custom solutions in Google Workspace. Also, if nothing else it’s all a great reminder that you can quickly enhance your UI with Unicode characters:

Source: Tech Recruiter Tries Coding — Google Apps Script