How To Connect To The Teachable API With Apps Script

This post explores how to connect to the Teachable API using Apps Script. You can use this setup to return data about your online courses and show it in Google Sheets.

For example, here’s a running 30-day window into the enrollment, engagement, and completion rates of my online courses:

Teachable Data In A Google Sheet

As a creator, it’s super useful to see these sorts of insights. They inform your future strategy and help identify areas of the business to improve. The standard Teachable dashboard is very limited and doesn’t show you this kind of information.

So let’s see how to connect to the Teachable API and create custom data reports.
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How To Use The TRIM Function In Google Sheets To Clean Your Data

The TRIM function in Google Sheets removes unwanted spaces around text.

Trim Function Example In Google Sheets

TRIM removes the leading, trailing, and repeated spaces in the text values in column A.

The formula is:

=TRIM(A2)

🔗 Get this example and others in the template at the bottom of this article.

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Create Barcodes In Google Sheets In 2 Easy Steps
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Barcodes are visual representations of numbers and strings.

Typically they represent numbers that link back to records in a database storing valuable information about a product.

They’re easy for machines to scan and are ubiquitous in stores and warehouses around the world.

Learn how to create barcodes in Google Sheets in this post, with a simple 2-step process.
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Exploring Population Growth And Chaos Theory With The Logistic Map, In Google Sheets

In this post, I want to show you something amazing: how a simple equation — the logistic map — can lead to incredible outcomes, and even to chaos.

And we’ll explore this with Google Sheets so you can follow along (please download the template at end of the post).

But first, we begin our story in a field far, far away, where two bunnies are getting down to, erm, business, shall we say, as they start a fluffle* of rabbits…

* collective noun for wild rabbits

Two rabbits in a field

Provided the growth rate is greater than one, the population grows until it becomes constrained by limited resources (for example, food). Then it settles into a stable population, neither increasing nor decreasing year on year.

But as the growth rate increases weird things start happening.

The rabbit population grows faster but it doesn’t settle down to a single equilibrium (stable population) anymore. No. In fact, the population oscillates between two equilibrium values. One year high, one year low, then back to the high value again, then low, and so on, to infinity.

Keep increasing the growth rate, however, and suddenly the population oscillates between four equilibriums. Then eight. Then sixteen.

And if it increases past the specific growth rate of 3.57, well all bets are off the table!

The population becomes chaotic and never settles into any equilibrium at all. It bounces around randomly, some years high, others low, others in the middle, with no pattern.

Except that’s not the end of the story.

Incredibly, within this region of chaotic behavior lie “islands of stability”. Short windows at specific growth rates where order re-establishes itself.

Out of the chaos, a periodic pattern emerges! 🤯

The Logistic Map

Here is the logistic map with a changing growth rate to illustrate how the population changes:

Logistic Map Iterations in Grid

Contents:

  1. The Logistic Map Equation
  2. Comparing Populations At Different Growth Rates
  3. The Bifurcation Diagram
  4. How To Create The Logistic Map In Google Sheets
  5. How To Create An Interactive Population Model With Grid
  6. How To Create The Bifurcation Diagram
  7. Displaying The Logistic Map Equation In Google Sheets
  8. Logistic Map Template In Google Sheets
  9. Further Reading

Continue reading Exploring Population Growth And Chaos Theory With The Logistic Map, In Google Sheets