Using Data from a Google Spreadsheet

  • Jo Sprague

    (@josiahsprague)


    10 years, 4 months ago

    I’ve Googled for this, and I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for.

    I have a Google Spreadsheet that contains data that needs to be automatically published on a client’s WordPress site.

    Previously, I published a link to the HTML version of the table. However, the client decided that an HTML table isn’t “user friendly”, so they want me to create a template that displays the data in an HTML/JS accordion layout.

    Doing this manually, would be fairly straightforward, but create an unacceptable labor bottleneck since the client updates their Google Spreadsheet on a daily basis and expects the published information on the website to be continually up to date.

    I’m aware that Google has a Data API, so I should be able to write some code that gets the data I need out of the Spreadsheet automatically and displays in a template on my WordPress site.

    What I don’t know is the specifics of how to make this work. Are there any plugins for pulling data from a Google Spreadsheet and being able to output it in a free format, or is this going to be all custom coding using PHP and the Google Data API? If it has to be completely custom, are there any tutorials that could help me figure out exactly how to do it?

    Essentially, if I could figure out how to pull the text from one particular cell and print it out on the html page via WordPress, the rest would just be a matter of rinse and repeat until I get the page that I need built.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • WPyogi

    (@wpyogi)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    Have you looked at any existing plugins for embedding a spreadsheet?

    http://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=google+docs

    Thread Starter Jo Sprague

    (@josiahsprague)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    Yes, like I said, I’ve been searching for a solution. I do not want to embed a spreadsheet.

    Again, I want the data from the spreadsheet. I’ve already got the spreadsheet embedded, but like I said in my post, the client does not want a spreadsheet on their page.

    WPyogi

    (@wpyogi)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    Sorry, hard to know what all people have tried :).

    I’ve seen quite a few threads asking about this kind of thing – and no real answers.

    I’ll move this thread to the Hacks forum – someone there might have more insight on this level of coding.

    Thread Starter Jo Sprague

    (@josiahsprague)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    Thanks. It might be a rabbit trail, but I’m going to start with this: https://github.com/jsoma/tabletop

    I’ve already got my doubts after reading the known issues, so we’ll see. I welcome any other informed suggestions!

    WPyogi

    (@wpyogi)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    I don’t know about “informed” and this is off the cuff and more on your client’s end of this – but FileMaker Pro integrates quite well with websites – and with Excel. I’ve not used it to publish to the web (it’s on that long “oh, gotta play around with that” list) but I use it quite a lot as a DB. Might be worth looking into – depending on your client’s situation.

    Thread Starter Jo Sprague

    (@josiahsprague)

    10 years, 4 months ago

    Thanks for the suggestion. I don’t think I can convince my client to use different tools. They want to use what they want to use. I’ve got to adapt to their whims. 😉

    So far Tabletop.js is working nicely. However, I would still be interested in a server-side solution if anyone knows of one.

    cloudeliver

    (@cloudeliver)

    9 years, 11 months ago

    +Josiah Sprague, I’ve come across a very similar request from a client.
    I need to feed GaugePress plugin with data coming from a spreadsheet.

    Would you be so kind as to share how were you able to get data from a Google Spreadsheet and use it in your website? Can you share a link to it?

    Thank you in advance

    Amit.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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