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Google Sheets Connector Reference

Use Google Sheets as a data source (get a new Google Sheet row and send a Slack message with information from the row, for example) or a data target (get a new Salesforce contact and turn it into a row in a Google Sheet). Some details of how to work with data in a flow are specific to the data source or data target, and also change depending on the specific trigger or actions you choose.

Connections

To connect to a system, whether it is a source of data or the target where you are sending data, you must create a connection with that system’s required credentials. You typically connect to different systems within a flow and can reuse each connection every time you need to connect.

This system requires the following credential information for its connections:

Connection Name

Enter a connection name that will help you remember the details of this connection. You can reuse connections multiple times in a single flow, and in more than one flow, and the credentials are hidden after you create the connection. Therefore, it’s helpful to provide a name that easily identifies this connection from others.

Only you can see the connection. Other users in your Composer app must create their own connections.

Composer launches an authentication dialog where you choose which Google Drive account you’re connecting to Composer, and if you aren’t already logged in, you enter a username and password.

Triggers

Each flow starts with either a scheduler or a trigger. Schedulers are set to a default frequency of 15 minutes. Triggers, such as "each time a new record is created", are defined by you and provide multiple options related to the data in your system.

Triggers use a polling process to actively check for new updates from an external system. The polling frequency is 15 seconds.

This system provides the following trigger options:

New spreadsheet

This trigger fires when a new spreadsheet is created in the Google Drive associated with the connection.

Google Sheets are not saved at the moment of creation. They are saved the first time they are edited. Therefore, a new spreadsheet won’t trigger a flow until after it is edited and saved. However, the save date is the time of creation, not the first edit. Thus, if you create a second spreadsheet and edit it before you edit the first one, the second spreadsheet triggers a flow; the first one is ignored.

New row in sheet

Monitors one sheet within a spreadsheet and triggers when a new row is added at the end of the sheet. When a flow is initiated, this trigger returns up all existing rows in the sheet. Each subsequent time that the flow is triggered, new rows added to the sheet are returned.

Once text is present in one cell or column, updating those cells or columns does not trigger as a new row. To trigger a new row when updating a cell or column, use the Update row in sheet trigger.

Updated row in sheet

Monitors one sheet within a spreadsheet and triggers when a row is created or updated. When a flow is initiated, this trigger returns all existing rows in the sheet. Each subsequent time that the flow is triggered, new or updated rows in the sheet are returned.

Limits

  • Sheets limited to 10,000 rows

  • Header rows excluded

  • Trigger works with My Drive, not Team Drive

Polling Frequency

For triggers in this connector, the Polling Frequency field is required. This field enables you to select how often Composer makes a request to the underling system API to look for changes to records in active flows. You can select a different polling frequency for each flow in your organization. With a shorter frequency, the flow executes more often; however, a shorter frequency consumes more API calls. For example, if you have an order management flow, you might require nearly real-time updates, which can be achieved with a 15-second polling interval (which equates to 5760 API calls per day). In contrast, if your flow updates a pricing catalog, you could poll the flow every hour (which equates to 24 API calls per day).

Actions

After you connect to a system and define the trigger or configure a scheduler, you define the actions that the flow performs, such as copying a record from Workday to Salesforce. The actions you can perform depend on which system you are connected to.

This system provides the following actions:

Create row

This action adds a new row at the end of the sheet named in the connection.

Update row

This action updates a row in a sheet.

Limits

  • A Google Sheet must have a header row. If data is stored in row #1, the action fails.

  • Google Sheets does not write to a cell if the composite data pill has a null or empty value. This could affect the Update row or Create row actions.

Google Sheets™ is a trademark of Google LLC.