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I love Google Sheets. It is so much more powerful than 99.9% of the users appreciate. Here is how I use it at my day job as head of PM at New Relic: - Fetch

I love Google Sheets. It is so much more powerful than 99.9% of the users appreciate. Here is how I use it at my day job as head of PM at New Relic: - Fetch deals closed and lost hourly from Salesforce - Fetch for each of our 14k+ paid accounts usage metrics using our Insights product - Pull both items into a nice color-coded business dashboard that is near realtime - Send said dashboard out as a PDF to a bunch of stakeholders daily/weekly - Save PDF snapshot into Google Drive so I can easily pull up historical reports If you haven't tried out Google App Script and supercharged your spreadsheets, give it a shot. It's also basically the only way the engineer in me gets to code much these days, so I have fun with it too :) PS: Google Sheets is definitely much slower for pure spreadsheets than Excel, no question about that. But by using cloud-based JavaScript + custom code, I can often work around that issue by writing functions that process the data quickly and report on what I need. Ultimately I end up getting much more out of it than Excel.

vegabook 10y ago
Ever since I learned R and Python, I have dumped Excel. All my heavy lifting is done in a proper programming language, and for all the spreadsheet things that I need, Google Sheets is perfect. There's also something pretty magical about the sharing functionality when two people work on a document at the same time. Not to mention that all my sheets are a browser shortcut away, anywhere.
- hjek 10y ago
  For a free software spreadsheet people can work on at the same time, there's EtherCalc: https://ethercalc.net/ https://ethercalc.net/
machbio 10y ago
This Blogger has lot of Google App Script that might be helpful for anyone interested in Google App Script - https://digitalinspiration.com/google-addons https://digitalinspiration.com/google-addons
- VirgilShelton 10y ago
  Thank you for this, amazing!
franciscop 10y ago
You might like a small library I made then, it's really similar to Twillio one but in Node.js but a lot easier to set-up (read-only): - https://github.com/franciscop/drive-db https://github.com/franciscop/drive-db
rebootthesystem 10y ago
I get all the good things Google Apps do. It's wonderful. Yet, until Google has a "contract with our users" that includes a level of customer service and human conflict resolution I would not touch them with a ten foot pole. Why? Because they could take it all away --and I do mean ALL-- overnight. Email, apps, etc. I've seen many people run into the Google ban for reasons not more complicated than not being experts and using one of Google's tools in a way that triggers an algorithmic ban. And this doesn't have to have anything to do with fraud or scams. Had one client, probably ten years ago, who moved all of his 200+ domains to a service Google introduced at the time called "Google for Domains". A domain parking service with ads inserted into the parked domains auto-magically by Google. Prior to that all of his domains were parked at GoDaddy, who used Google to stuff ads into the domains. As soon as the service was offered he figured it was a good idea to remove GoDaddy as the middle-man in that equation. He transferred all of his domains. There was an approval process. All domains were approved overnight. Done deal. Right? Wrong! Two days later Google sent him an email informing him that all of his Google accounts were now permanently suspended (aka: closed) with no recourse. Reason given: Unusual click activity on some of the domains parked with Google for Domains. This guy ran (runs) a multi-million dollar manufacturing business. The very idea that he would sit there clicking on ads to earn a quarter of a cent per click is, well, stupid. Anyhow, this one event cost him all of his Google tools. His email, calendar, contacts, apps and whatever else he was using at the time. No recourse. Not conversation with a human being. Nothing. Done. Puff. Evaporated. Since that one event I have been of the opinion that using any of these Google tools for a business is, to put it plainly, stupid and dangerous. You could be betting the farm on a petulant algorithm and no customer service of any kind to protect you from it. I still have Excel files from decades ago that I can open and manipulate today. Microsoft could go out of business and I could still open these files. And the software has never lacked functionality, either directly, through add-ins or programmability. The bottom line for me is that if something is business-critical it isn't a good idea to rely on a service that could be yanked overnight (I do mean that literally). If Google had customer service and a human (and humane) process to deal with issues it would be a very different story. I don't want free stuff. We have tens of thousands of dollars invested in all kinds of software. I want stuff I can rely on because my businesses depend on it. The only way you are going to have to security is if you pay for well supported software that has a team behind it who understand how important it is for a business to have the ability to wake up every morning knowing that the tools they come to rely on for their daily work won't evaporate overnight. I truly don't care how many shinny new things, candy and chocolate Google throws on the table. Until they prove they understand this one point they represent a business-killing risk nobody should be willing to accept. BTW, this is a problem with nearly all Internet giants. Facebook, Amazon and others are horrible companies from the standpoint of how they deal with their business customers.
josephjrobison 10y ago
For all the non-programmers out there that are comfortable with spreadsheets, this site - http://codingisforlosers.com/ http://codingisforlosers.com/ -is pretty epic for building out a ton of dashboards and data pipelines with Google Sheets.
cm2187 10y ago
...when I think that Microsoft is trying to kill scripting in office...
pbreit 10y ago
Is it currently possible to authenticate to Salesforce without Oauth? Like just obtain a token? I use App Scripts to run API calls from a Google spreadsheet which is easy when the API has simple basic auth. But I've been stumped with Salesforce. FYI: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/sheets https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/sheets
- Lightbody 10y ago
  I have OAuth working. It's a pain and I'm sure I've kludged it because it requires going to a _specific_ sheet and re-authenticating every few months. But it works! Hit me up at patrick@lightbody.net and I'd be happy to share my work. Maybe we can polish it up and get it published to Github.
johnsmith21006 10y ago
Totally agree on Google Sheets. I love the connectivity of sheets and the best application I have seen is grades at the school district when you have a lot of kids. It is so easy for me and my wife
goblin89 10y ago
There’s also a newer thing called Google Data Studio, which creates neat visualizations directly from Sheets with even less effort. It’s a no-brainer to feed all sorts of metrics (business or otherwise) from let’s say a Django app into Sheets, and with Data Studio decision makers can have all the freedom to combine them into complicated dashboards in accordance with current business landscape, pinging engineers only if new things need to be tracked.

vegabook 10y ago

Ever since I learned R and Python, I have dumped Excel. All my heavy lifting is done in a proper programming language, and for all the spreadsheet things that I need, Google Sheets is perfect. There's also something pretty magical about the sharing functionality when two people work on a document at the same time. Not to mention that all my sheets are a browser shortcut away, anywhere.

hjek 10y ago
For a free software spreadsheet people can work on at the same time, there's EtherCalc: https://ethercalc.net/ https://ethercalc.net/

machbio 10y ago

This Blogger has lot of Google App Script that might be helpful for anyone interested in Google App Script - https://digitalinspiration.com/google-addons https://digitalinspiration.com/google-addons

VirgilShelton 10y ago
Thank you for this, amazing!

franciscop 10y ago

You might like a small library I made then, it's really similar to Twillio one but in Node.js but a lot easier to set-up (read-only): - https://github.com/franciscop/drive-db https://github.com/franciscop/drive-db

rebootthesystem 10y ago

I get all the good things Google Apps do. It's wonderful. Yet, until Google has a "contract with our users" that includes a level of customer service and human conflict resolution I would not touch them with a ten foot pole. Why? Because they could take it all away --and I do mean ALL-- overnight. Email, apps, etc. I've seen many people run into the Google ban for reasons not more complicated than not being experts and using one of Google's tools in a way that triggers an algorithmic ban. And this doesn't have to have anything to do with fraud or scams. Had one client, probably ten years ago, who moved all of his 200+ domains to a service Google introduced at the time called "Google for Domains". A domain parking service with ads inserted into the parked domains auto-magically by Google. Prior to that all of his domains were parked at GoDaddy, who used Google to stuff ads into the domains. As soon as the service was offered he figured it was a good idea to remove GoDaddy as the middle-man in that equation. He transferred all of his domains. There was an approval process. All domains were approved overnight. Done deal. Right? Wrong! Two days later Google sent him an email informing him that all of his Google accounts were now permanently suspended (aka: closed) with no recourse. Reason given: Unusual click activity on some of the domains parked with Google for Domains. This guy ran (runs) a multi-million dollar manufacturing business. The very idea that he would sit there clicking on ads to earn a quarter of a cent per click is, well, stupid. Anyhow, this one event cost him all of his Google tools. His email, calendar, contacts, apps and whatever else he was using at the time. No recourse. Not conversation with a human being. Nothing. Done. Puff. Evaporated. Since that one event I have been of the opinion that using any of these Google tools for a business is, to put it plainly, stupid and dangerous. You could be betting the farm on a petulant algorithm and no customer service of any kind to protect you from it. I still have Excel files from decades ago that I can open and manipulate today. Microsoft could go out of business and I could still open these files. And the software has never lacked functionality, either directly, through add-ins or programmability. The bottom line for me is that if something is business-critical it isn't a good idea to rely on a service that could be yanked overnight (I do mean that literally). If Google had customer service and a human (and humane) process to deal with issues it would be a very different story. I don't want free stuff. We have tens of thousands of dollars invested in all kinds of software. I want stuff I can rely on because my businesses depend on it. The only way you are going to have to security is if you pay for well supported software that has a team behind it who understand how important it is for a business to have the ability to wake up every morning knowing that the tools they come to rely on for their daily work won't evaporate overnight. I truly don't care how many shinny new things, candy and chocolate Google throws on the table. Until they prove they understand this one point they represent a business-killing risk nobody should be willing to accept. BTW, this is a problem with nearly all Internet giants. Facebook, Amazon and others are horrible companies from the standpoint of how they deal with their business customers.

josephjrobison 10y ago

For all the non-programmers out there that are comfortable with spreadsheets, this site - http://codingisforlosers.com/ http://codingisforlosers.com/ -is pretty epic for building out a ton of dashboards and data pipelines with Google Sheets.

cm2187 10y ago

...when I think that Microsoft is trying to kill scripting in office...

pbreit 10y ago

Is it currently possible to authenticate to Salesforce without Oauth? Like just obtain a token? I use App Scripts to run API calls from a Google spreadsheet which is easy when the API has simple basic auth. But I've been stumped with Salesforce. FYI: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/sheets https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/sheets

Lightbody 10y ago
I have OAuth working. It's a pain and I'm sure I've kludged it because it requires going to a _specific_ sheet and re-authenticating every few months. But it works! Hit me up at patrick@lightbody.net and I'd be happy to share my work. Maybe we can polish it up and get it published to Github.

johnsmith21006 10y ago

Totally agree on Google Sheets. I love the connectivity of sheets and the best application I have seen is grades at the school district when you have a lot of kids. It is so easy for me and my wife

goblin89 10y ago

There’s also a newer thing called Google Data Studio, which creates neat visualizations directly from Sheets with even less effort. It’s a no-brainer to feed all sorts of metrics (business or otherwise) from let’s say a Django app into Sheets, and with Data Studio decision makers can have all the freedom to combine them into complicated dashboards in accordance with current business landscape, pinging engineers only if new things need to be tracked.