Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Docs gets an API for task automation

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 199 posts

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#51

Post by coldtea »

legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

>They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Office, they can just do it. And no one has to get dragged into it kicking and screaming - you want to work off of an Excel file? Fine! It's still there!

Plus it wont be randomly cancelled when Google decides they got bored with it after several years of neglecting it first.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#52

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #25

I've been looking for a sophisticated way to automatically generate documents for a while (formulas, data tables) with the addition of one crucial feature that I haven't been able to find just yet: the ability to generate a document in addition to allow human editing. For example, this is my desired workflow, Step 1, create a document automatically, Step 2, allow humans to begin editing with tracked changes, and Step…

You can generate documents and other access other google api functionality with apps script https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/docs so you can not just create formulas, documents etc. but also emails, modify calendar events based on behaviors.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#53

Post by bryanrasmussen »

xd1936 wrote: post #45

Oh cool. I've done a lot of similar projects in recent years with Apps Script [1]. With a script that's tied to a document (or even a standalone script that references Docs by ID), you can design your own API of sorts. Take in HTTP GET and PUT [2], run commands with DocumentApp [3], etc. The upside to a system like that is, the authorization flow is abstracted completely out and handled by Google. You just pick from…

right I was thinking I can do this with apps script but I guess this abstracts away some stuff, which is good.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#54

Post by jiveturkey »

jacquesm wrote: post #24

I wished they would spend time on fixing bugs, Google docs has so many subtle bugs it is a very annoying product to use. Of course you could argue that you could do both new features and fix bugs but with budgets (even for Google) finite and new features not as critical as fixing existing issues I would love for the priority to be given to bug fixes. Pet peeve: it is impossible to do a wysiwyg document in Google docs…

the entire productivity suite is very much an MVP product. the killer feature is real-time collaborative work, for that aspect it's actually quite good IMHO.

then for sheets, being able to work in "apps script" is fantastic. apparently you can use typescript in excel with some third party tools but surely they all stink in some way, and won't product portable documents. and anyway, VB is ok enough and has its own strengths.

otherwise, Office completely blows away google apps.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#55

Post by clanrebornsx »

cosmie wrote: post #47
legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

Hahahaha. I stumbled upon Flow last year when I switched jobs. Our IT/procurement process is ridiculous, so I scrounged around our intranet resources for licenses and tools that I had access to by default or could get/request access to without triggering the Eye of Sauron to gaze down upon me from the tower of IT Security. My team does analytics consulting work for large multi-agency marketing campaigns, and I used F…

Yuck so u help those scam MLM companies flourish?

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#56

Post by andyroid »

jacquesm wrote: post #24

I wished they would spend time on fixing bugs, Google docs has so many subtle bugs it is a very annoying product to use. Of course you could argue that you could do both new features and fix bugs but with budgets (even for Google) finite and new features not as critical as fixing existing issues I would love for the priority to be given to bug fixes. Pet peeve: it is impossible to do a wysiwyg document in Google docs…

Definitely agree on how annoying that is, but as far as I know no one has really pulled off client side rendering in any way looking even close to equal on all browsers and platforms. I know I spent years on another project trying to do just that before resigning to render the final result (PDF in this case) server side - so at least _that_ was consistent, albeit unfortunately not with the expectations one has from having seen the client side rendering before.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#59

Post by londons_explore »

It seems all of this was possible before the new API.

Google Docs already had an HTML import/export API, which allowed you to download a document, make changes, and save those changes back again. That would allow you to implement any kind of templating you like. This API just makes it slightly easier and more visible.

Re: Google Docs gets an API for task automation

#60

Post by irrational »

coldtea wrote: post #51
legitster wrote: post #21

They will have a lot of catchup to do to get where Office is now. I'm frankly amazed by how good Microsoft Flow has been. So many dumb business processes rely on an Excel doc somewhere, or a stupid manual email somewhere else. But with Flow I've seen just a single smarty-pants able to fully streamline an entire department one rule at a time. They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Offi…

> They don't need to get permission to bring in a new logo - it's part of Office, they can just do it. And no one has to get dragged into it kicking and screaming - you want to work off of an Excel file? Fine! It's still there! Plus it wont be randomly cancelled when Google decides they got bored with it after several years of neglecting it first.

>they got bored with it

I've always wondered why Google is so bad at keeping various services going. Your comment caused me to reflect that Google hires a lot of smart people. Smart people tend to get bored with working on the same thing and want to work on new shiny things. Could it be that the smart people at Google do a bang up job of creating new services, but then get bored and move on to something new, leaving the previous service to slowly die and eventually get abandoned?

Post reply on HN