AppsScriptPulse

From Point A to Point B: How to Use Google Apps Script to calculate distance and time in Google Sheets

 

Imagine you’re responsible for transporting materials from one location to another for a logistics company. Accurately calculating the distance and time between two points is crucial for efficient logistics management, and having this information readily available can save time, money, and effort. However, doing it manually can seem like a daunting task. But don’t worry, there’s a solution!

Discover how to automate distance and time calculations between two points in Google Sheets using Google Apps Script. This blog provides a step-by-step guide on setting up the integration and shows you how to use it to save time and increase productivity.

Source: From Point A to Point B: How to Use Google Apps Script to Calculate Distance and Time in Google Sheets

The Ultimate Google Apps Script Front-End Development Guide. Part 0: The Worst and the Best Practices

Welcome to the Ultimate Google Ultimate Google Apps Script Front-End Development Guide!

If you are reading this post, then you likely have experience with Google Apps Script. Essentially, there are three types of front-ends that you can create with Apps Script:

  • Web apps
  • Modal/modeless dialogues
  • Sidebars

In this blog post series, we will only discuss HTML front-ends, as this is where you can create the most powerful and sophisticated user experiences. Unfortunately, the Card Service is outside the scope of this series, and it is not nearly as powerful as an HTML front-end. With that in mind, Google, how about allowing HTML front-ends for Workspace add-ons?

Source: The Ultimate Google Apps Script Front-End Development Guide. Part 0: The Worst and the Best Practices

Creating your own Google Calendar Assistant with Google Apps Script and the Google Speech to Text, ChatGPT and Google Chat APIs

 

Image credit: Stéphane Giron

Have you ever wished for a personal assistant who could give you a quick summary of your day’s events while you’re busy getting ready in the morning? I worked on a Google Apps Script that does just that! By collecting events from in Google Calendar, generating a summary using ChatGPT, and creating a voice file with Google Text to Speech, the script will send a daily summary straight to their Google Chat Spaces.

Not surprising given the current interest in generative AI to see more examples emerging from the Google Workspace developer community. This latest example comes from Stéphane Giron who shares how he is able to recreate some Google Assistant functionality with Google Apps Script and calls to the ChatGPT and Google Cloud Text to Speech services. All the main code snippets from this project are available in the source post link.

Source: How I created a Calendar Assistant with Google Apps Script that automates a daily voice summary…

Integrating AI in Google Sheets with Google Apps Script: How to Pass Prompts to ChatGPT and Get a Response

Have you heard about ChatGPT? It’s the latest buzz in the world of AI and everyone’s eager to unleash its true powers. As I delved deeper, I wondered — is it possible to integrate ChatGPT with Google Sheets? Can we pass prompts from Google Sheets and get a response from ChatGPT?

After some research, I discovered that it’s indeed possible to integrate ChatGPT with Google Sheets using the Open AI API. In this blog, we’ll be exploring how to bring AI to your spreadsheets using the Open AI API and Google Apps Script.

This blog post discusses how to integrate AI in Google Sheets using Google Apps Script by passing prompts to ChatGPT, a large language model. It provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up the integration and use it to generate responses to prompts.

Source: Integrating AI in Google Sheets with Google Apps Script: How to Pass Prompts to ChatGPT and Get a Response

 

Calculate contrasting font colors for Google Sheets with Google Apps Script

If you are playing around with Sheet colors with Apps Script, you sometimes find yourself with font colors that don’t go well with the background colors you’ve chosen. However, we can use Yiq values to decide whether the luminance of the background color would be best with a light or a dark foreground font color. Here’s a small Apps Script library to figure it out for you.

Nice little helper library from Bruce Mcpherson if you’ve like to automatically apply contrasting colours to Google Sheets ranges. The source post from Bruce provides the background to the YIQ colour system as well as how to use the library. Follow the source link for more details.

Source: Calculate contrasting font colors for Sheets. – Desktop Liberation

Generating a Time-based One Time Password (TOTP) in Google Apps Script

In this post, I would like to introduce a sample script for putting Time-based One-time Password (TOTP) value into Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script.

For UK readers, no not Top of the Pops (TOTP), but Time-based One Time Passwords (TOTP). In the context of Google Workspace it’s more than likely that you can rely on the built-in Google Identity and account security features rather than rolling your own form of two-factor authentication (2FA). Should you be in such a situation when you need to authenticate outside of Google then this example integration of the OTPAuth library in Google Apps Script might be of interest. Rather than just updating a Google Sheet you could combine with MailApp/GmailApp to email the passcode for the user to use. See the source post for implementation information and caveats.

Source: Putting TOTP into Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script

Handling Google Forms checkbox responses with Google Apps Script

Get Google Form responses for checkbox-type questions and perform further actions depending on their values.

Get all checkbox responses from a Form

Get all checkbox responses from a Form

The following Google Apps Script is an example of one way to get the responses from a Checkbox-type question on a Google Form and how you might go about differentiating them.

This came up for a project I was working on where I need to put a Yes/No value into 3 separate Google Sheet cells based on 3 options in a question. The slight challenge is that all of the responses come out as a single array for this question, containing the strings of the values that have been ticked only.

Source: The Gift of Script: Google Form Checkbox responses

Automating the creation of multiple folders in Google Drive with Google Apps Script (with a nice Google Sheet processing code pattern)

 

you can use the following Apps Script to create folders in Google Drive for students and share those folders with their email addresses based on data from a Google Sheet

Whilst this post from Amit Agarwal looks at the automatic creation of Google Drive folders, it’s also worth having a look at it at for an Apps Script pattern for iterating over and processing data from Google Sheets. In particular there is a getStudentData()function that turns the 2D array return from .getValues() into an object array which includes a rowIndex. This makes it easy to update your Google Sheet when each row is processed.

Source: Automating the Creation of Multiple Folders in Google Drive – Digital Inspiration

Create Your Own “UptimeRobot” to monitor websites using Google Sheets, Gmail, and Google Chat

If you monitor important websites and require advanced features, tools such as UptimeRobot is the solution for you. However, if you only have a few personal websites and want a simple, customizable, and free alternative for monitoring them, this may be a better option.

In this tutorial, I will guide you through setting up a website monitor using Google Apps Script and Google Sheets. This monitor will periodically check the status of your websites and notify you via email and Google Chat (optional) if any issues are detected.

We’ve featured other website uptime solutions using Google Apps Script, this one is nice because it also includes an optional Google Chat integration allowing to send alerts your preferred Chat Space. Another useful feature, used by a number of paid for uptime monitors, is defining a keyword which must be found in the page. Follow the link to the source post for all the code and instructions on getting started.

Source: Tutorial: Create Your Own “UptimeRobot” to Monitor Websites Using Google Sheets, Gmail, and Google Chat

Setup automated reminders in Google Forms/Google Sheets with Apps Script

 

In this article I’ll show you how to setup reminder emails that will get sent automatically each day if there are any pending tasks in your spreadsheet. Stay tuned until the end, where I’ll show you an easier way to accomplish this using Coda.

Eric Koleda must be the undisputed master of the Apps Script demo. The ‘random cat’ Add-on, is one of my favourite examples where Eric finds a really simple hook to get you engaged in what can often be a complex project. Eric is now Developer Advocate at Coda and he’s not lost is eye. In this post Eric gives the gift of script with a basic example of how you can handle email notifications from Google Form responses in batches with a timed trigger (cats being replaced for cakes). Eric also shows how a no-code alternative can be accomplished in Coda.

Source: Setup automated reminders in Google Sheets