AppsScriptPulse

V8, Drive, Intermediate

Working with the Google Drive API Revisions history: Tips for handling revision merges with Google Apps Script

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Having spent quite a bit of time working with the Google Drive API Revisions resource in this post I thought it would be useful to share some of the lessons and solutions I’ve picked up along the way. For this I’ll be sharing code snippets for interacting with the Revisions resource with Google Apps Script, but the solutions discussed could easily be applied to your programming language of choice.

Source: Working with the Google Drive API Revisions history: Tips for handling revision merges

Solutions, Sheets, V8, Video Tutorial, Beginner

How to access an API with Google Apps Script and API calls and Google Sheets manipulation

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In this video you will learn how to access an API with Google Apps Script.

Chanel Greco has created this video tutorial which walks through some different ways you can interact with other sites with Google Apps Script to get data into Google Sheets. For the tutorial Chanel uses the Weather API and by coincidence Luxman Ravindrakumar has also shared a similar tutorial on Medium explaining how to use the OpenWeather API. So if you prefer learning by watching or reading you’ve no excuses :). Check the sources links below for both tutorials.

Sources: How to access an API with Google Apps Script (YouTube) and API Calls & Spreadsheet Manipulation With Google Apps Script

Add-on, Official News, Chat

Make software development much more agile with Google Workspace [Google Chat apps and Add-ons]

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Image credit: Google

Learn how developers use Google Workspace to centralize and integrate all of their favorite Agile and DevOps tools like Jira, GitHub, Datadog, and PagerDuty.

From the Google Cloud Blog you can learn how Google Workspace is being used to make software development more agile. For Google Workspace developers this includes a number of products you might want to consider. Additionally, this post is a great way to see how Google Chat apps and Workspace Add-ons are being seamlessly integrated to expand the functionality of Google Workspace. If you haven’t recently looked at the opportunities with developing Google Chat apps you probably should…

Source: Make software development much more agile with Google Workspace | Google Cloud Blog

Solutions, Drive, Sheets, V8, Intermediate

A tiny Google Apps Script tool to synchronize Google Drive permissions which can also process large amounts of data

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Image credit: Inclu Cat

Are you using Google Drive to share information with your staff? As the number of staff members increases, it can become increasingly difficult to manage permissions properly. I faced a similar issue. As the members of the team changed from time to time, setting access rights for each folder became a cost that could not be ignored. So I used Google Apps Script to create a tool to synchronize the permissions management table with the actual permissions.

We’ve previously featured Inclu Cat’s posts on ways to deal with Google Apps Script’s 6-minute execution limit [Ref 1 & Ref 2]. These posts continue to prove to be incredibly popular and usually feature in our most read list. Even if you aren’t interested in programmatically managing Google Drive file/folder permissions this post is a nice example of using the authors LongRun solution to process large amounts of data with Google Apps Script. From the source link you can find the GitHub repo with all the code you need and setup instructions.

Source: [Google Drive] A tiny tool to synchronize permissions

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Developing robust applications with Google AppSheet: A bundle of tutorials and resources

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Recently, I got the chance of giving a training on Google AppSheet at O’Reilly Media, Inc. … This was a three hour long training where I talked about the basics of Google AppSheet and how to create apps on Google AppSheet.

Aryan Irani has shared a really helpful post with highlights from an O’Reilly Media hosted course he led focusing on ‘Developing Robust Applications with Google AppSheet’. The post links to a number of other tutorials Aryan has published on how to create various AppSheet based applications including an Expense Tracking App, Vehicle Inspection App, Inventory Management App and more. Aryan touches on how Google Apps Script can be used in combination with AppSheet. If this is a topic you are interested in Chanel Greco recently highlighted a Google I/O session on the topic.

Source: My First Online Training: Developing Robust Applications with Google AppSheet

Snippet, Solutions, Drive, Web App, Beginner

Removing Google Drive file access permissions via a Google Apps Script Web App

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Remove a users edit access to a Google Drive file via an Apps Script Web App.

Web App code sample

Web App code sample

The following Google Apps Script is designed to remove a person’s edit access from a Google Drive file via a Web App. The reason for using a Web App in this instance is because removing a person’s access to a file whilst they are running Apps Script code typically results in an error (or most certainly the inability to cleanly end the code). In the project I was working on prior to this step the code needs to send some automated emails before finishing with removing the person’s access.

Source: The Gift of Script: Remove File Access via a Web App

Solutions, Looker Studio, V8, Beginner

Connecting ‘Tweet counts’ (or other APIs) to Data Studio using a Community Connector

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A community connector with overridable config parameters to track recent Twitter trends for a query.

For the most part this connector is pretty similar to the one I’d created for visualising global stats of SendGrid user’s email statistics but with a key difference of making use of overridable config parameters — this is what gives the connector the capability to accept a query from the report directly and return/visualize the data based on a user’s input

This post from Sourabh Choraria is a useful reminder of what is possible with Data Studio Community Connectors, in this case connecting to the Twitter API v2 to visualise the tweet count for a defined search term.

The code for this connector is available from the source post and includes lots of inline comments to help you work out what is going on making it easy to modify if you have other APIs you would like to connect.

Source: Connecting ‘Tweet counts’ API to Data Studio using a Community Connector

Solutions, Gmail, No Code

Syncing handwritten notes from reMarkable 2 to Notion [or A.N. Other via your Gmail inbox with a little Google Apps Script] 

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Use Google AppsScript to automatically sync your reMarkable notes via Gmail to Notion.

Not the first example I’ve seen where the lack of API’s or other suitable integrations leads someone to using their inbox as an interface to move data around. This is a nice script example for moving handwritten notes made using reMarkable to project management and note-taking service, Notion. If you are not a Notion user it would be easy to send notes to another destination like Tasks, Sheets or a different external service like Coda.

[Aside: Yesterday in Pulse we highlighted some work by Pablo Felip on Coda webhook-based automations with Apps Script. This resulted in a useful discussion on Twitter with Coda developer advocate Eric Koleda about when best to use Coda’s webhooks:

So if you are a Coda user you might want to look at reMarkable -> Gmail -> Apps Script -> Coda webhook :)]

Source: Syncing from reMarkable 2 to Notion

Solutions, Sheets, Intermediate, No Code

Discover how to interact with Coda webhook-based automations using Google Apps Script

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Discover how to interact with Coda webhook-based automations using Google Apps Script! In this post, we’ll explore different code patterns in both Coda’s formula language and Google Apps Script to send data contained in a Google Spreadsheet to a Coda table, and also perform other related tasks, using the new (May 2022) webhook-powered Coda automations.

For those unfamiliar with Coda:

Coda provides word-processing, spreadsheet, and database functions. It’s a canvas that blends spreadsheets, presentations, apps, and documents together. The software can integrate with third-party services like Slack and Gmail.

This post from Pablo Felip is a great opportunity to see what is possible using the new Coda webhook-powered automations. We’ve previously featured a couple of Coda/Apps Script integrations on Pulse, that have highlighted solutions using the Coda REST API and Coda Packs. This is the first we’ve seen using webhooks, which have a ‘no-code’ when/if/then setup interface. This route may provide the quick glue required for your Coda/Google Workspace integration. Pablo includes all the source code in the post as well as detailed instructions for setting up.

Source: Coda webhooks 💙 Google Apps Script!

Solutions, Sheets, V8, Beginner

Encouraging users to run setup scripts in Google Sheets container bound projects when they first make a copy

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I quite often get called upon by clients to create Google Sheet templates that have Google Apps Script Automations bound to them. Sometimes these Google Sheets require an automated setup process to run things like gathering initial data, setting up time triggers, approving scopes connected to onEdit() or onOpen() triggers or renaming connected forms and their contents.

One of the challenges is getting new owners of the duplicated template Google Sheet to run the bound script before they dive into working on the Google Sheet. … After quite a lot of trial and error, I have devised a pretty solid approach that seems to have the most success in getting users to run through the authorisation of scopes and then run the startup script.

Scott Donald shares his approach for helping users get setup when first using a container bound script project in Google Sheets. The process has some nice features including revealing additional sheets, changing the active sheet and cell as well as removing the setup sheet. The post also highlights some useful tips and considerations as part of the user experience including the type and placement of supporting information.

Scott has also shared a solution for removing a Google Sheets button after a script has run, which you might want to also check out if you are thinking of developing this process further.

Source: One Approach to Encourage Users to Run Google Sheet-Bound Apps Script When They First Make a Copy of the File – Yagisanatode