How to create an automatically updating Google spreadsheet

Tired of finding, copying and pasting data into spreadsheets? With just a few lines of code, you can set up a self-updating spreadsheet in Google Docs that fetches and stores data for you, as this Facebook example shows.

By Sharon Machlis, Computeworld | IT Management, Google, google docs

Auto-running monthly

Unfortunately, Google Spreadsheet's automated triggers don't include a "monthly" option. To get around that, write a separate function that runs daily, and use that function to check the current date and run your other function if the day of the month is 1 (see code at left). Finally, set up a new trigger to run this check-what-day-it-is function daily.

Then, voila! A self-updating spreadsheet that collects and stores data automatically.

Originally published on Computerworld| Click here to read the original story.