Organise Google Drive files into a JavaScript Object so that they can be looped through for each named individual.

Files to loop through and organise

The following Google Apps Script is designed to go through a folder of Google Drive files where a number of tutors have individual files for groups of students they teach. The code will collate all of the relevant files (specifically their IDs) that belong to each tutor, so that at a later date we can loop through the organised data set and create individual Google Sheets for each tutor and compile their student data into it.

What this code ultimately allows us to achieve is the ability to go through the files and get them organised for further coding.

In this example we have a file name pattern of ModuleCode – Tutor Name – Group Number for example ABC – Jane Doe – Grp 02. So we want to collate all of the files that belong to Jane Doe first, then move on to the next tutor (Micky Mouse in this example).

The collated data will look like this:

{
   "Jane Doe":[
      "FILE ID HERE",
      "FILE ID HERE",
      "FILE ID HERE"
   ],
   "Micky Mouse":[
      "FILE ID HERE",
      "FILE ID HERE"
   ]
}

Source: The Gift of Script: Organise files into a JavaScript Object

Phil Bainbridge

I use Google Apps Script to support staff and students in my job. I enjoy dabbling with creating tools to help with automation and I freely share my learning experiences on my blog, where I also have a number of useful Google Add-ons: www.pbainbridge.co.uk