Scenario: Assume you have a Google Sheet that tracks weekly sales data. You want to automate Google sheets with scripts so that the script processes this week’s data every Friday, generates a summary report, and emails it to the sales team. Efficiency!

Set Up Your Google Sheets Data

• Organize your sales data in a Google Sheet with date, product, quantity, and sales amount columns.
• Ensure the data is consistently formatted and updated.

Writing the Script

• Open Google Sheets Script Editor:
  • In your Google Sheets, go to Extensions > Apps Script.
• Write a Function to Process Data:
  • Create a function that calculates the total sales for the week.

function processWeeklySales() {
  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("SalesData");
  const data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
  let weeklyTotal = 0;
  
  data.forEach((row, index) => {
    if (index !== 0) { // Skip header row
      weeklyTotal += row[3]; // Assuming sales amount is in the fourth column
    }
  });

  return weeklyTotal;
}

• Generate Report:
  • Create a function to format the report. This can be as simple as a text summary or a more complex HTML template.

function generateReport(totalSales) {
  return `Weekly Sales Report\nTotal Sales: $${totalSales}`;
}

• Email the Report:
  • Use Google Apps Script’s email service to send the report.

function emailReport(report) {
  const recipients = "[email protected]"; // Replace with actual email addresses
  const subject = "Weekly Sales Report";
  const body = report;

  MailApp.sendEmail(recipients, subject, body);
}

• Combine Functions:
  • Create a main function that combines all steps.

function main() {
  const totalSales = processWeeklySales();
  const report = generateReport(totalSales);
  emailReport(report);
}

Automate the Workflow

• Set up a time-driven trigger in the Script Editor to run the main function every Friday.
  • In the Script Editor, go to Edit > Current project’s triggers.
  • Click Add Trigger, select the main function, choose Time-driven, and set it to run weekly on Friday.

Conclusion

This script will now, every Friday, automate Google Sheets with scripts create a summary report, and email it to the designated recipients. This is a basic example, but you can expand upon it by including more complex data processing, sophisticated report formatting, and additional automation features as needed for your specific workflow.