Google Sheets Operations
Table of contents
Before you can start working with Google Sheets, you need to connect them to the program. Read how to do this here: Connecting Google Sheets .
Google Sheets are very similar to simple Tables in many ways.
For work, the same Google Sheets Operations action is used and all the actions that are used for simple Tables can be used for Google Sheets (except for the Bind to the File), but for the latter there are several unique functions, which will be described below.
How to add an action to a project?
Through the context menu Add Action → Tables → Google spreadsheet
Or use smart search.
Actions with Google-spreadsheet: read, add, write
To work with Google Sheets, use the Table Processing action.
This article describes the features that are unique to Google Sheets. You can read about all other operations in the article Table processing.
In all fields, you can use both static text and variables, and their combinations.
Reload table
This action allows you to get up-to-date data from a remote Google Spreadsheet.
It might be useful if the Spreadsheet was changed manually (using a browser) or it was changed by another project.
Bind to URL -> Bind to an Existing Table
This action allows you to bind to a table during project execution. It is convenient to use when at the time of starting the template the address of the table is not known (for example, the table is created by the template itself (how to do this is described below)).
Link to an existing Google spreadsheet
Here we indicate the link to the table to which you want to bind.
Bind to URL -> Create a New Sheet
Allows you to create a new sheet in Google Sheets.
Link to an existing Google spreadsheet
Here we indicate the link to the table in which we will create a new sheet.
New sheet name
Indicate the name of the sheet here.
Put URL to variable
Here you need to specify the variable in which the link to the new sheet will be saved.
Bind to URL -> Create a New Table
As you might guess, this action allows you to create a new Google spreadsheet.
New table name
Specify the name of the table here.
New sheet name
The table is created with one sheet. Here you need to specify the name of this sheet.
Put URL to variable
Here you need to specify the variable in which the link to the new table will be saved.
Multithreaded work with Google Sheets up to 7.1.6.1 inclusive
ZennoPoster supports multi-threaded work with Google Sheets
This means that one table can be accessed through multiple threads. When executed, all threads will have one instance of a virtual table, changes from which will be periodically synchronized with the table in the cloud.
Several copies of ZennoPoster can work with one Google spreadsheet
But it should be borne in mind that changes from the program do not come to the cloud instantly, but within 30-60 seconds. Therefore, this delay will apply between different copies of ZennoPoster.
How to optimize multi-threaded data writing to one Google spreadsheet
There is a solution for this. Let's say if you are parsing some data in batches and adding all the results into one Google table.
ZennoPoster is designed in such a way that it always tries to synchronize the virtual table and the table in the cloud. If there are several copies of ZennoPoster and/or the table has a lot of data, synchronization can take a long time.
In this case, if you do not need up-to-date data from the table in each copy of ZennoPoster, you can configure the fast recording mode via the Edit → Settings → Google Spreadsheets → Spreadsheet change processing policy:
In this mode, each copy of the program will only send data, not worrying about reading it into the program (and will not waste time on it). All sent data from different ZennoPoster copies will be recorded to the cloud.
Useful links: