Update December 2017: Google has added Waterfall Charts to the native charts in the Chart Tool of Google Sheets, obviating the need for you to manually create your waterfall charts (or use apps script) per my original post.
Now you simply highlight your data, click Insert > Chart and under the Chart type picker choose “waterfall”, as shown in the following image:
Continue reading How to create a waterfall chart in Google Sheets
Ever find yourself needing to repeat an action in your Google Sheets?
For example, on a recent client project I wanted to cycle through my spreadsheet data, compare it to another dataset and apply a matching algorithm. To do this and stay within the 6 minute execution limit for Apps Script, I split my data into “blocks” of 10 rows, counted how many blocks I had and then ran the matching algorithm once for each block until they’d all been processed.
By adding time-based triggers, I setup my Google sheet to do this automatically, rather than having me click a button each time.
Using Google Apps Script, you can add these time-based triggers programmatically, so they can run and stop automatically.
In this post I’m going to show a skeleton example of this time-based architecture, to which you can add your own functionality.
The entire code file is here on GitHub and the spreadsheet is available here (feel free to make a copy: File > Make a copy… and then you can open the script editor to modify the code).
Continue reading Build time-based triggers in Apps Script projects to automate programs
In the following image, I have two browser windows open. On the left, a Google Sheet containing a simple table of data. In the right browser window, a web page with a d3 chart that displays the data from the Google Sheet and can be refreshed dynamically when the data changes.
Continue reading Creating A D3 Chart With Data From Google Sheets
You’ve marked your students’ test scores and recorded it all in a beautiful Google Sheet.
You’ve dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s, checked your spelling, and made sure all your scores are ready to go.
Now comes the tedious part, copying and pasting each student’s scores and feedback into an email or Slack message to send back to them.
Wait, there’s a better way!
With a little bit of upfront effort using Google Apps Script, you can build yourself a custom Google Sheets Slack/Email app that can automate that whole final step for you.
Besides being useful, it’s also pretty fun to post stuff from your Google Sheet direct to Slack!
Continue reading Save time with this custom Google Sheets, Slack & Email test scoring bot
