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Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#11

Post by saradhi »

We, extracttable.com, use Google Spreadsheets, a minimal, to save the signup via Google Forms which is also linked to an endpoint using the app scripts to generate an API key.

The biggest workflow I witnessed is from our user, a financial intelligence platform from Brazil, which initially takes data from images and do a manual entry to spreadsheets, has a significant pipeline with as many as 200+ macros defined for their business flow that takes down to close a final output of their clients need.

Prerelease: I planned for a Show HN post, next Tuesday, as we are yet to publish the below content in our site.

We have built a Spreadsheet Add-on (https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/extracttable_image...) to aid their business process that extracts table data from images and puts into the spreadsheet.

Offer: For HN community, take 20% extra credits on your purchase with an email to apikey@extracttable.com with the subject "From HN."

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#13

Post by harrydehal »

For a fun side project, I decided to use Google Sheets as a database that would be easily editable by the general public (non-developers).

It is currently populating data for a crowdsourced map of San Francisco Bay Area third-wave coffee roasters:

https://hdehal.github.io/coffee-maps

I was able to quickly get the app created in React, and while Google Sheets has extensive API docs (https://developers.google.com/sheets/api), I found it far easier to use the simplified Node.js wrapper from https://github.com/theoephraim/node-google-spreadsheet

On occasion, I'll get a friendly "request for access" with someone adding a roaster to the list (and the map gets populated automatically), so it's fairly hands-off.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#14

Post by bdcravens »

I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app.

On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with.

Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to build out a new line of business app using Excel in a few weeks, something that would have taken use several months or more using our traditional development approaches (it will eventually be moved there for robustness, but using spreadsheets as a prototyping tool and letting those who understand the business hammer out the logic, before handing off to developers, is a great approach. A working spreadsheet is definitely the best requirements doc in the world)

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#15

Post by bdcravens »

nickgervasi wrote: post #5
dhruvkar wrote: post #2

Tracking shipping containers as they progress from supplier -> port -> ship(s)/port(s) -> port of discharge -> rail -> depot -> our warehouse and then returned to the depot.

Interesting use case! Any reason you didn't consider something like Trello for this? It seems like it would fit it nicely and give you a nice visual overview of where each shipping container is.

Aside from draggable cards and swimlanes, Trello doesn't make for a great solution where you need to store structured data, especially if you need to additionally query or filter on that data.

Probably far easier to just build out a visualization and keep the data in the spreadsheet.

I tend to store status in a dropdown in the spreadsheet, and color-code the row based on status.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#17

Post by nickgervasi »

andrefuchs wrote: post #10

I'm using a Google Spreadsheet as a database backend for my portfolio. ( https://andrefuchs.github.io/ ) I wanted a solution that is lightweight and easy to update.

That's pretty cool! I took a look at your repo out of curiosity. I didn't realize Google Sheets had an easy way to read sheet data as JSON. Neat!

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#18

Post by nickgervasi »

obviyus wrote: post #9

I use one sheet every day to track my time. It’s simple enough with 24 x 365 cells for each year’s sheet. It takes me around 30s a day to fill it out. It’s mostly guesstimating what I was doing during the day. It’s a fun way to look back on my week. I honestly think this is one of the most impactful things I’ve done to reduce wasting my time.

That's great. Do you use a consistent naming scheme or categories to help aggregate data?

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#19

Post by nickgervasi »

bdcravens wrote: post #15
nickgervasi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting use case! Any reason you didn't consider something like Trello for this? It seems like it would fit it nicely and give you a nice visual overview of where each shipping container is.

Aside from draggable cards and swimlanes, Trello doesn't make for a great solution where you need to store structured data, especially if you need to additionally query or filter on that data. Probably far easier to just build out a visualization and keep the data in the spreadsheet. I tend to store status in a dropdown in the spreadsheet, and color-code the row based on status.

I see. I haven't used it myself, but I know Trello has a custom fields feature to add structured data to each card (https://help.trello.com/article/1067-using-the-custom-fields...).

Are you the only one working out of this spreadsheet or do you share it with others?

Re: Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for?

#20

Post by nickgervasi »

mooman219 wrote: post #8

A few things that I use it for: Pre-programed D&D stat trackers because it's free and Pathfinder is... complicated. Factorio base ratio calculations, and EvE online related market data. Quickly sharing database query output. A simple weight tracker. Most of these things are and can be independent services, the issue is if I need something now that's ad hoc, then Sheets provides a computation sandbox in a format that…

Interesting! I also used a spreadsheet a while back when playing reactoridle.com. Similarly, I had a spreadsheet for my weight and body fat % every day.

Agree that while independent services are possible, it's hard to beat the flexibility you get from Sheets.

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