AppsScriptPulse

AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting

To bring the power of AppSheet to more users, AppSheet Core licenses will now be included for the following Google Workspace editions…

By including AppSheet Core licenses in more Google Workspace editions, the power of AppSheet is accessible to more users. Further, Admins will have the security features they need to ensure their users are using AppSheet appropriately in their organization.

Previously AppSheet Core licenses were included with Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Education Plus users. Google have recently announced that AppSheet Core licenses will also be included in the following Google Workspace editions:

  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Starter and Standard
  • Frontline Starter and Standard
  • Non-profits
  • Education Standard

This is great news for Google Workspace users as AppSheet includes a number of out-of-the box features which already integrate into other Workspace products, like dynamic emails, Google Chat and Google Apps Script integration.

Along with the expansion of Workspace editions getting AppSheet Core, is the news that Admins will have basic security controls which can disable external usage of AppSheet apps.

Looking at the associated new security settings support page, it was interesting to see that turning on AppSheet Core security will disable ‘external integration through the app API’:

This caught my eye as the AppSheet API is a feature reported as only being supported on AppSheet Enterprise plans:

Perhaps it’s a mistake in the AppSheet API documentation, but I hope not as the AppSheet API is an incredibly useful addition for developers to do more with AppSheet.

Finally a little plug. If you are interested in AppSheet and would like to find out about training and support services get in touch. At CTS, where I work, we’ve a growing reputation in both products built using AppSheet as well as helping you get the most from the platform in your organisation.

Source: AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting

Let Bard answer your questions in Google Sheets with the PaLM API and Google Apps Script

 

Discover the magic of combining Palm API’s extraordinary capabilities with the limitless potential of Google Apps Script. In this blog we will be taking a look at how we use the PaLM API and Google Apps Script inside of a Google Sheet. We will be passing prompts from a Google Sheet and getting back a response. 

Learn how to integrate Google Bard responses inside of Google Sheets using the PaLM API and a little bit of Google Apps Script. Using Google’s MakerSuite it is easy to create an API key which you can use with a custom function in Google Sheets. Whilst the solution focuses on creating a custom function which would automatically refresh, using it programmatically to store responses could be a quick way to collaboratively experimenting with LLM text prompts.

Source: Let Bard Answer Your Questions from Google Sheets with the PaLM API and Google Apps Script

[News] MakerSuite expands to 179 countries and territories, and adds helpful features for AI makers

When we announced MakerSuite earlier this year, we were delighted to see people from all over the world sign up for the waitlist. With MakerSuite we want to help anyone become an AI maker and easily create innovative AI applications with Google’s large generative models. We’re excited to see how it’s being used.

Today, we’re expanding access to MakerSuite to cover 179 countries and territories, including anyone with a Google Workspace account. This means that more developers than ever can sign up to create AI applications with our latest language model, PaLM 2.

We’ve recently featured a couple of posts on Pulse mostly from Aryan Irani on getting started Google GenAI tools in Google Apps Script. As part of these Google MakerSuite, a tool that lets developers start prototyping with Google’s large language models quickly and easily, is used as part of the API calls to PaLM. MakerSuite is still in private preview, but the good news in the linked announcement that the waitlist has been expanded to 179 countries. Given how Google have rolled out other GenAI tools, in particular Bard, I’m not surprised that EU countries are still not included, but find it strange at time of writing the United Kingdom is still not on the list. Despite this the announcement is worth a read to find about some other new features including automatic text prompt tips and data import/export to Google Sheets and by CSV.

Want to write better prompts? Now, you can write a text prompt and click “Prompt Suggestion” to get ideas and suggestions to get better responses – Image credit: Google

Source: MakerSuite expands to 179 countries and territories, and adds helpful features for AI makers

Creating your on preview ink Smart Chips in Google Docs: The Untold Potential of Apps Script

 

Alright, folks, we’re talking about something quite hot off the press in the realm of Google Apps Script — “Smart Chips.” This feature is available within Google Docs and can build previews of pasted links using the Card Service. Think of it as a little preview window of what lies beyond the link — a sneak peek, if you will. 🕵️‍♂️

Editor: Smart chips are a recent feature in Google Workspace that help you quickly insert information into your Docs and Sheets. They can be used to insert people, places, dates, and more. It’s also possible for Google Workspace developers to publish their on ‘Preview links’ smart chips as Workspace Add-ons. In this post from Dmitry Kostyuk you can learn about publishing your own smart chips and some creative ways to get the data you need using Google Apps Script.

Source: Previewing Links with Smart Chips: The Untold Potential of Apps Script

Retrieving and putting values for PDF forms with Google Apps Script (and other PDF solutions)

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:

All these examples use the PDF-LIB JavaScript library and as previously noted in the Pulse post Merging multiple PDF files as a single PDF and converting all the pages in a PDF to PNG images using Google Apps Script , with minor modification to can load this library into the Apps Script editor.

Source: Retrieving and Putting Values for PDF Forms using Google Apps Script

Introducing ChatGPTApp, a new library for Google Apps Script and ChatGPT (and a new way to generate personalised mail merges)

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.

Source: Introducing ChatGPTApp, a new library for Google Apps Script

What can AI do for you as a Google Sheets user? Is the hype justified?

Image credit: Dall-E/ Ben Collins

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.

Source: AI + Google Sheets: How To Use Them Together

Extend the capabilities of PaLM API with Google Apps Script

 

Discover the magic of combining Palm API’s extraordinary capabilities with the limitless potential of Google Apps Script. In this blog we will be taking a look at how we use the PaLM API and Google Apps Script. We will be passing basic prompts and getting the appropriate responses using Google Apps Script.

Yesterday’s Pulse contribution from Aryan Irani there was an overview on getting started with Google’s Gen AI PaLM 2 Large Language Model accessed using MakerSuite. In a follow-up post Aryan continues dives deeper into how the PaLM API can be called from Google Apps Script. The post includes instructions and sample code to help you get started. Aryan will be continuing exploring and sharing what can be done with the PaLM API and Google Workspace tools such as Google Sheets, Google Docs and more in future tutorials.

Source: Extend the capabilities of PaLM API with Google Apps Script

Getting started with Google’s Gen AI (PaLM 2) in Google Apps Script

At the Google I/O ’23, various announcements were made with respect to different AI and ML advancements Google is making as we speak. While listening to the session, I stumbled on PaLM 2. It was really interesting as to what capabilities it has with respect to generative models and machine learning.

This tutorial series will introduce you to PaLM 2, the API, MakerSuite, and Google Apps Script. We will combine these tools to do something interesting with prompts.

Editor: There are a couple of ways you can access Google’s Gen AI language models. Bard is the consumer version but for developers you might want to start exploring API access to one of the underlying foundation language model, PaLM 2, using Google’s MakerSuite. There is a waitlist for MakerSuite, but worth putting your name down if you are interested in an easy way to programmatically start prototyping applications with the PaLM using a basic API key. This video series from Aryan Irani covers everything you need to get started, particularly if you are interested in using PaLM with Google Apps Script.

If you prefer to get started straight away, you can also access the PaLM API in Vertex AI today from a Google Cloud project (more information about this on the MakerSuite site).

Source: Getting started with PaLM 2

Bulk create Drive folders with subfolders with Google Apps Script

Bulk create Google Drive folders with multiple subfolders. Control the naming of the folders and how many you want.

Use this tool to bulk create folders with subfolders

Use this tool to bulk create folders with subfolders

The following Google Apps Script is designed to bulk create Google Drive folders with multiple subfolders. You control the naming convention of each folder and exactly how many you want.

Features include:

  1. Runtime control – currently set to 5 minutes 30 seconds. Will ignore rows that have a ‘Folder Link’ so you can continue from where you left off and append further folders should you require.
  2. More subfolders – the Google Sheet has columns for 10 subfolders but you can technically add more (columns) and the code will account for this automatically.
  3. Toast popups to inform you of the progress as folders are created.
  4. ‘Log’ sheet and popup error messages if something goes wrong.
  5. Concatenation – create those useful descriptive folder/file names so items are easier to search for in the future. Concatenate will let you combine values that may exist in different columns in another spreadsheet for example, or take those folder names and prepend/append words around them.

Source: The Gift of Script: Bulk create Drive folders with subfolders