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I have a site which allows authenticated users (read: in-house users) to download certain data from the site in CSV format, e.g. http://example.com/activities.csv . Can I create a Google Spreadsheet which pulls its data directly from that URL?

(The idea is that I could then share that spreadsheet with them - we're on the same Apps domain - and skip the step of downloading and importing a CSV file every time we want to update the spreadsheet.)

I've looked through Spreadsheet's menus and help and haven't found a toehold on this; I'm wondering if it's not possible or if I'm just searching the wrong things.

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Why can't you just house this data in a Google Spreadsheet and then share the sheet with them, skipping the CSV altogether? I guess my question is why not use the Google sheet to pull the data instead of it dumping into a CSV. –  OnenOnlyWalter Feb 19 '13 at 21:07
The data in question is inventory questions about use of the website, e.g. a list of user-created objects on the site for administrators, a sort of activity report on the site itself. If there's a way to pull this data directly into a Google spreadsheet without it being in CSV, I'd love to hear about it. –  pjmorse Feb 19 '13 at 21:11
Are you suggesting using something like github.com/tricycle/gdata_spreadsheet to push the data directly to the spreadsheet? –  pjmorse Feb 19 '13 at 21:25
Exactly, using the gdata library, you can import data and write directly to a Spreadsheet, I'm not an expert in that area however, but thought I'd ask if there was some reason you're avoiding the gdata info. –  OnenOnlyWalter Feb 19 '13 at 21:57
I'm not avoiding it, I just found it easier (so far) to export CSV because I'm not familiar with the gdata libraries (yet). (Don't get me started on the CSV library I ended up with...) I'll look into the gdata plugin and see where that lands me. –  pjmorse Feb 20 '13 at 0:33
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1 Answer

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Drop this formula in the first cell of your google spreadsheet:


And it will automatically fill out the rest of the current spreadsheet with as many columns and rows as it needs until all the data from the original source csv is displayed.

There are many other powerful ways to feed Google Spreadsheets from all kinds of external sources. Check out this article for some demonstrations.

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