pull-data-from-google-sheets.md

Pulling Data from Google Sheets

Setup

To pull up-to-date data from Google Sheets, you will need to have your local development environment set up.

Next, you will need to add the .secrets.yml file to the root of your local project. (It is gitignored and will not be committed to the repo.)

A copy of this file lives in NYU DH Credentials Box account for you to download into your project. (The Box file will need to be renamed from secrets.yml to .secrets.yml)

Run the tasks

Check the tasks available with:

bundle exec rake --tasks

You should see something like:

$ bundle exec rake --tasks
  rake fetch:all        # fetch all sheets from google drive as csv
  rake fetch:courses    # fetch courses sheet from google drive as csv
  rake fetch:people     # fetch people sheet from google drive as csv
  rake fetch:projects   # fetch projects sheet from google drive as csv
  rake media:downscale  # downsize people and project images to 300p...
  rake site:build       # build the site with baseurl if applicable
  rake site:reset       # clear out site files
  rake site:test        # run html and link checks

Run the task you need. For example, if you want to fetch project updates, run:

bundle exec rake fetch:projects

This will overwrite the local temporary data file (in this case source/_data/.tmp/projects.csv) and then create or overwrite the yaml file used by the site (in this case source/_data/projects.yml). Most importantly, the task will split configured array columns on ; and convert the values to yaml arrays. For example, the pis column in the Projects spreadsheet might have a value like wolf; augst. This task will convert that to proper yaml array, e.g.,

pis:
  - wolf
  - augst

You can then serve the site locally to view the updates. (See: Serving the Site Locally)