Send to Spreadsheet

How to transfer data from your bot to Excel or Google Sheets by triggering a message

Melita Gandham avatar
Written by Melita Gandham
Updated over a week ago

Send to Spreadsheet allows you to push data collected by a bot straight to an external spreadsheet i.e. Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. You can collect data using multiple attributes, which will then be populated into your spreadsheet of choice when the Send to Spreadsheet message part is triggered.

Benefits

• easily and quickly feed bot data into an external spreadsheet

• maintain a live spreadsheet that updates automatically every time the end of flow is triggered

How it works

1) Create you messages

First, create your bot flow. For this example, I've built an event feedback bot, containing an intro, thanks message and three questions:

2) Set up your Excel spreadsheet

Create a new Excel spreadsheet and create a column for each of the attributes you created in your bot:

I have four columns in my spreadsheet - one for each of my three questions and then one to note the email of the user who submitted the feedback.

3) Edit your spreadsheet trigger message

Go back to the platform and edit the message that will contain your "Send to spreadsheet" message part - in this example, this is the thanks message as it's at the end of my bot flow. The data from your bot flow will be sent over to your desired spreadsheet when this message is triggered. This message contains a text message part for the user, and then the "Send to spreadsheet" part. To find the "Send to spreadsheet" message part, hover over the "External Spreadsheets" message part and select the first option:

4) Configure your settings

When you've added your message part, click on "Click to configure" in the bottom right hand corner to launch the settings modal. You will first be asked to select your connection. If you have not established a connection at this point, then click on the blue "Create a new connection with Microsoft" button:

You can then go through the login flow of your chosen provider to connect up your external sheet to The Bot Platform. Once that is done, your new connection will show up in the dropdown. As you can see here, I have successfully connected my Microsoft account:

You can also manage your connections in the settings page of the platform. You can find out more about that here.

5) Add in your spreadsheet URL

Head over to your spreadsheet and copy the URL from the address bar, then paste it into the "Enter spreadsheet URL" section:

Then click the "Next" button.

Excel users, please note: The URL entered needs to contain /personal/ in order to work. A URL containing /sites/ denotes a shared spreadsheet, which is not compatible with this feature. The spreadsheet must also be created by the owner of the connection. It's best practice for the bot builder to be the owner of the connection to avoid any issues with the Send to Spreadsheet feature later down the line.

6) Select your sheet and choose your attributes

If your spreadsheet URL is correct, you will then be asked to select your sheet from the dropdown menu:

You will then be asked to pair up your user attributes to the columns in your spreadsheet using the pair of dropdown menus.

7) Pair up your attributes and columns

Select each of the attributes you want to transfer over to the spreadsheet and pair it up with the column you want to data to fall under:

Once you're happy with your Send to spreadsheet settings, click save.

8) Save your message and test your bot

Save your message, push your changes live and start testing your bot. When you've gone through your flow, and triggered your final message, the data from your bot should show up in your Excel spreadsheet, in a new row in the sheet of your choice. Here is an example of what your sheet should look like:

Troubleshooting

1) Your Send to spreadsheet settings will be validated at each step. If the connection to Microsoft or Google, spreadsheet URL or sheet are incorrect, you will see a red error message telling you to double check your inputted info. For example:

2) You should only be able to create one Google connection with The Bot Platform. If you have set up more than one Google connection, then you will need to unhook those previous connections from Google's side by clicking here and removing access.

If you find that your data isn't pulling through to your spreadsheet, please reach out to us on Intercom and we'll be happy to help.

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