Stop a custom function from recalculating every time the spreadsheet is open? - google-apps-script

I have a custom function that uses fetch to save some information to a spreadsheet. The problem is, it's meant to be used many times on the spreadsheet, fetching from various pages. As the amount of uses increases, needlessly re-fetching information every time the spreadsheet opens will become more and more of a problem.
Is there any way to avoid this default behavior? I still want it to recalculate every time the cell is edited, even if the parameters are exactly the same. Is there perhaps a way to tell if it's a manual edit vs. automatic recalculation, or simply disable the behavior entirely?

Is there perhaps a way to tell if it's a manual edit vs. automatic recalculation, or simply disable the behavior entirely?
No and no.
One of possible workarounds is to have a "switch" in some cell of the spreadsheet: say, if cell A1 has "Update" then custom functions recalculate normally; otherwise they do nothing. That cell (A1) can have data validation with dropdown, for easy switching between states.
The custom functions would be modifying to include the following:
function customFunction(...) {
var currentStatus = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getRange("A1").getValue();
if (currentStatus != "Update") {
return;
}
// the rest of function

Related

Writing a script to Clear Data at a specific time, Archive the cleared data and if possible move certain fields to a separate sheet

I have a google form that I am trying to have people answer questions to each day. It is mandatory that this form is completed before they come to the facility. I need a script to clear the data in the Response Tab at midnight each night and I need that data that is being cleared to be archived in a separate sheet if possible. A bonus feature would if as the responses come in each day, the could populate on a separate sheet with 4 fields, "Student ID", "Last Name", "First Name" and "Cleared"
I know I'm asking a lot! The most important thing is the clearing daily and being able to archive the previous day's data (even if it has to be a tab in that file)
To be fair I'm also very new to using scripts if I have to do anything special besides add script I might need some guidance there as well.
Any help anyone could give would be awesome!!!
As Nabnub has already indicated, this is really too much for one question. However, the appointment scheduling system that I made for my tutoring website, (see tutoringbyroger.com), does something quite similar to what you would need, so I will give you some quick pointers below on what worked for me:
You will need to open up the form where the information comes in and go into the script editor from there. Once in there, this function should get you started:
function closeForm(e){
// First we will get the information they entered and parse it
// into an array of strings:
var responsesArray = e.response.getItemResponses();
var txtResponsesArray = [];
var len = responsesArray.length;
for(var i=0; i < len; ++i){
txtResponsesArray[i] = responsesArray[i].getResponse();
}
// We can now do stuff with the strings in txtResponsesArray, like add them to
// a spreadsheet or something.
}
In the script editor you will need to click on triggers, and add a trigger to run the above function when the form is closed. That way, you can capture the data and process it the instant it is submitted.
Create a separate function whose sole purpose is to clear out the information that you would like to clear. This can be from the form or the spreadsheet, or both. It can be in the same script file, just outside of the closeForm() function.
Create another trigger to run the function that does the deleting when you would like that task done.
Anyhow, that is a taste of what you will need to get started. Here are some relevant links to some documentation you might find useful:
How to open a form. (Note: the ID comes from the url of the form when you edit it)
How to open a spreadsheet.
I hope that gives you some idea of where to start.

Looking for an onEdit script that can be used to change the color of a google sheets cell when it is edited?

I am using google sheets to monitor a project that includes multiple users. I would like to use an onEdit command to change a cell's color to yellow when the content is edited. Below is the code that I am working with. However, I am unable to get it to function. Coding is still new to me, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.
function onEdit1(e)
{
var range=e.range;
var column=range.getColumn();
if(column>3 && column<27)
{
range.setBackground('#ffff00')'
}
}
function onEdit(e){
if(e.range.getSheet().getName()!="Sheet1")return;
if(e.range.columnStart>3 && e.range.columnStart<27) {
e.range.setBackground('#ffff00');
}
}
I also added a line to limit it to only one sheet. You may wish to change the name of that sheet or even remove it entirely if you want it to run on your entire spreadsheet.
A lot of new programmers try to run these onEdit(e) functions from the script editor. Unfortunately, that doesn't work because the e parameter is expecting to be populated by the event trigger. Without the event object you'll normally get an error like Cannot read property range from undefined because e has not been populated by the event trigger.
I test them by making sure I'm editing the correct sheet and correct range and I use the e.source.toast() function to provide me with feed back sort of like the console.log() does.
If you want to learn more about the event object then try adding a Logger.log(JSON.stringify(e)); to the first line after the function declaration. And then get it to run by editing the appropriate sheet in the appropriate way and go to view log to see the results.

Try Catch for if script is already running in sheets, prevent a 2nd instance at same time?

I have a script that does some basic copy and pasting of data, creates a sheet as a pdf and attaches to an email.I have a button to start it for my less-tech-experienced colleagues embedded in a sheet:
We share the spreadsheet doc and I'd like to keep it that way for version control. What's the best way to set the script up so that if an instance of the script is already running in the spreadsheet doc it rejects a 2nd attempt until the first one is completed? Some sort of try catch?
I don't think the code is as relevant for this question, here's the beginning of the function in question:
function failedSettlementsEmailz() {
var contacts;
var toastMembers="";
....more code...
It calls two other functions in my script document that is bound to the Google Sheet spreadsheet.
Thanks
Take a look at the LockService.
For example in your code have:
var lock = LockService.getScriptLock();
if (lock.tryLock(1000)) { // Wait for 1s
// Do stuff ...
lock.releaseLock()
} else {
// This script is already running, try again later ...
}
I understood that when the script is run by clicking a button, you don't want to run the script more while the script is already running. If my understanding is correct, how about this workaround? Please think of this as one of several answers.
In this workaround, I selected to use CacheService. "CacheService allows you to access a cache for short term storage of data." The default expiration is 10 minutes. This is over the maximum execution time of GAS (6 minutes). So I selected this.
Flow :
Retrieve the key of "script" from CacheService.
If there is the key, it means that the script is running.
If there is no key, it means that the script is not running.
At this time, put the key of "script" with a value.
The process you want is run.
After the process was finished, the key is removed. This means the script is not running.
Sample script :
function failedSettlementsEmailz(){
var cache = CacheService.getScriptCache();
if (!cache.get("script")) {
cache.put("script", "running"); // you can use various value for the value of "running".
// do something
cache.remove("script");
}
}
Reference :
CacheService
If I misunderstand your question, I'm sorry.

New Google Sheets custom functions sometimes display "Loading..." indefinitely

SPECIFIC FOR: "NEW" google sheets only.
This is a known issue as highlighted by google in the new sheets.
Issues: If you write complex* custom functions in google-apps-script for google sheets, you will occasionally run into cells which display a red error box around the cell with the text "Loading..."
Google has suggested:
If this occurs, try reloading the page or renaming the function and changing all references to the new name.
However for other developers experiencing this issue (and who are unable to escape the "loading..." error), I've written my findings in the answer below on how to get past this (with limitations) consistently.
*We're treating this question as the canonical answer for Google Sheet's indefinite "Error... Loading data" problem. It's not limited to complex or slow functions.
Important Tip: Create multiple copies of your entire spreadsheet as you experiment. I have had 3 google spreadsheets corrupted and rendered completely in-accessible (stuck in a refresh loop). This has happened when I was experimenting with custom functions so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
You will want to try one or many of the following ways to fix this issue:
As suggested by google, try re-loading the spreadsheet or re-naming the function or changing the parameters in the cell to see if this fixes the issue.
Surround ALL your custom functions in a try-catch block. This will help detect code issues you may not have tested properly. Eg:
try{
//methods
}catch(ex){
return "Exception:"+ex;
}
Revert to the old sheets and test your functions and check for any other type of error such as an infinite loop or invalid data format. If the function does not work in the old sheets, it will not work in the new sheets and it will be more difficult to debug.
Ensure NONE of your parameters refer to, can expect to or will ever contain a number larger than 1 million (1000000). No idea why but using a number larger than a million as any parameter will cause your function to fail to execute. If you have to, ask the input to be reduced in size (maybe divide by 1000 or ask for M instead of mm).
Check for numeric or floating point issues where numbers may exceed a normal set of significant figures. The new sheets seems to be a little glitchy with numbers so if you are expecting very large or very complex numbers, your functions may not work.
Finally, if none of the above work, switch to the old google sheets and continue working.
If you find any other limitations or causes for functions to fail to execute, please write them below for me and other users who are heavy g-sheet users!
I also had the infinite loading issue with the following function.
// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
var retStr = "nope";
if( have >= need ){
retStr = "yep";
}
return retStr;
};
Turns out you shouldn't have a trailing ";". Removing the semicolon solved the problem.
// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
var retStr = "nope";
if( have >= need ){
retStr = "yep";
}
return retStr;
}
This runs as one would expect.
FWIW, I just ran into this and the culprit ended up being a getRange() call that pulled several thousand rows into an array. Periodically it would get hung on the "Loading..." message.
I worked around it by putting that range into the document cache. It's a little kludgy because the cache only stores strings, not arrays, but you can force it back into an array using .split(',') when you need to access the array.
(In my case it's a single array. There's probably a way to do it using a double array, either by sending each row or column into its own cache, or reading the cache value back N items at a time, each N becoming its own array.)
Here's the relevant bit from my code:
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("mySheet"); //search the "mySheet" sheet
// is the big list already in the cache?
var cache = CacheService.getDocumentCache();
var cached = cache.get("columnValues");
if (cached != null) {
var columnValues = cached.split(','); // take the cached string and make it an array
} else { // it's not in the cache, so put it there
var column = 1; // the column with your index
var columnValues = sheet.getRange(2, column, sheet.getLastRow()).getValues(); // first row is header
cache.put("columnValues",columnValues,60000); // this forces the array into a string as if you used .join() on it
}
This is definitely a bug in Apps Script -- getRange() shouldn't hang without a timeout or error message. But at least there's a workaround. Here's the bug I opened against it, where I've also put the full code.gs from my sheet.
One cause: Permissions needing authorizing.
As far as {this problem, better phrased the cell result(s) of a custom function displaying the disgustingly-vague message ‘Loading... Error: loading data...’}, indeed in the case where all instances of the same/similar custom function call displaying this error, is that Google Sheets needs permissions to run the script (often additionally: meaning in the past it didn't need these), so instead of {acting appropriately: then prompting the user for these permissions else returning that error}, Sheets instead hangs with this disgustingly vague error.
Additional permissions can be needed from 1 or more:
Google App Scripts has since rewriting their permission structure --how this problem now just happened to me, per my internal note O80U3Z.
Your code or some library it uses made changes to require more access ...but in this case you have a much better chance of guessing the cause of this disgustingly-vague error, so hopefully won't be reading here.
To fix, I explicitly ran my GAS spreadsheet code by both: clicking one of my custom menu functions and, in the ‘script editor’, running one of my custom JS functions notably the ‘onOpen()’ since that is most comprehensive. The first promoted me for indeed new permissions, via popup ‘Authorization RequiredThe application "MM6ZBT(MM6Z83 script)" needs authorization to run.’, though onOpen() also did this in cases of GAS revising its permissions since we used that sheet. Then, as I was still getting this ‘Loading...’ error, I reloaded the web page (so the sheet), and, at least for these cases of this disgustingly vague error, it was gone and the computations worked fine :-)
TL;DR - Try duplicating the sheet tab and delete the old one
I struggled with this issue today, and tried some of the approaches mentioned. For various reasons, renaming the function wasn't possible for me.
It was very clear that if I called a my function like this in cell X25:
=myFunction("a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)
The cell would be stuck "Loading...", while just changing a parameter slightly (e.g. converting a number to a string) the cell would evaluate fine.
=myFunction("a", "" & 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)
Just copying the code into another cell (e.g. X24) and executing it there seemed to bypass the problem. As soon as I moved it back to the original parameters or cell, it got stuck "Loading..." again.
So I would assume it's some kind of caching of "Cell ID", function and parameters that go bonkers on Google's side.
My good-enough solution was to simply duplicate the Sheet tab, delete the old one, and finally rename the new one back to the original name. This solved the problem for me.
I also had the "loading data..." error but none of the fixes described here worked for me. It didn't seem to be caused by the issues described here. In my case, I narrowed it down to a specific floating point operation issue (it looks like a real bug in Google Sheets to me), and documented one possible work around at
Google Sheets / Apps "Loading data" error: is there a better workaround?
To summarize (at the request of commenter Steve), if a cell with
= myfunction(B10)
generated a "loading data" error, then for me it could be fixed by wrapping the argument in a "value()" function:
= myfunction(value(B10))
which converts the number in cell B10 (which seemed like a normal number but generated problems somehow) into a normal number that works fine.
I also had the problem that you explained. It seems that it can be caused in more than one way.
I ended up finding that my custom function was displaying that error because it relied on data from an =IMPORTRANGE() call, and that call was failing.
I eventually found that the =IMPORTRANGE() call was failing because I had forgotten to update the URL that it was importing from when I had uploaded a new version of that imported-from sheet. It seems that trying to IMPORTRANGE from a trashed file can cause the infinite "Loading..." error.
Update 2022
It looks like this bug is still happening. I tried ALL the solutions mentioned here but none worked.
What worked was to start with a blank slate. I recreated the file, copy-pasted my data, reapplied my preferred style and format, and lo-and-behold the sheet finally managed to pull the data using my custom functions.
This is a definitely a bug on Google's end - and it's all the more annoying because they removed the "Report a problem" button from the "Help" section.
Nevermind
The newer sheet has stopped working too. This is so annoying ..
The problem is that when a custom function formula cell starts showing Loading..., the custom function does not get called at all. The code in the script project thus does not come into play. Even the simplest custom functions sometimes suffer from the issue.
The problem usually goes away if you clear the formula cell and undo, or slightly edit the custom function's parameters to cause it to get re-evaluated. But that does not solve the issue. Google has been dragging their feet solving the underlying cause for many years.
To help the issue get Google's attention, star issue 233124478 in the issue tracker. Click the star icon ☆ in the top left-hand corner to vote for fixing the issue and get notified of status changes. Please do not post a "me too" or "+1" reply, but just click the star icon. Google prioritizes issues with the most stars.
Add-ons
I had two add-ons, and no function was loading.
I removed them, and all is well!
For me, renaming the custom function solved the problem. For now at least.
Just to add to Azmo 's answer...
I in fact removed all trailing semi-colons from the code:
// check if an item can be checked off
function checkedOff( need, have ) {
var retStr = "nope"
if( have >= need ){
retStr = "yep"
}
return retStr
}
And discovered, that when doing this over a large range you can also max out the acceptable number of calls to the API.
To get around it I added an IF THEN check around my custom script call.
So instead of:
=checkedOff(H10,H11)
Use something like this to check for a populated field before execution:
=if(H17<>"-",checkedOff(H10,H11),0)
My app script pulling data from my MSSQL database displayed just fine on GoogleSheets my laptop browser but then did not display on the Android GS app.
Per this thread it looks like there's a number of issues that could cause this, but #DestinyArchitect's answer above re: Permissions seemed like the simplest fix.
While testing my app script, Sharing was off for this GoogleSheet file.
Once I moved it to my team's folder where we have default Sharing switched on with a few team members, the MSSQL data showed right up on the GoogleSheet in my Android GS app.
Easy fix, this time...
In my case, the cell was stuck with a Loading... message due to "probably" a race condition between functions and formulas resolutions.
This is my custom function:
function ifBlank(value1, value2) {
return !!value1 ? value1 : value2;
}
This is the formula calling it:
=IFBLANK(VLOOKUP($A2,Overrides!$A$2:$E,5,FALSE),VLOOKUP($A2,'_resourceReq'!$A$2:$C,3))
Those VLOOKUP values could be pretty complex and could also take some time to resolve.
Solution: (in my case)
Wrapping the VLOOKUP() into TO_TEXT() or VALUE() for example.
So, changing the formula to =IFBLANK(TO_TEXT(VLOOKUP($A2,Overrides!$A$2:$E,5,FALSE)),TO_TEXT(VLOOKUP($A2,'_resourceReq'!$A$2:$C,3))) worked well.
If that doesn't work maybe try resolving the value from a function into a cell before using it as the argument of your custom function.
In my case, multiple cells using functions experienced this issue, but the simple answer was... wait.
In my case, I was scraping data via importXML functions across multiple rows and
columns. I was thrilled with the results, feeling on top of the world, then "Loading..." started showing its ugly face. For way too long. That's how I wound up here in troubleshooting mode, impatient and upset that Google was doing me wrong.
I tried many of the solutions here, only to find my "Loading..." antagonist acting unpredictably, popping up randomly like whacamoles, nothing to do with the code itself.
So. In my case, it was a matter of waiting it out (towards an hour for some rows, but I had so many cells fetching url data).
My layman's guess is that fetching data like this gets put in their bandwidth pipeline, lesser priority than typing a url into a search bar or other user requests.

Service Invoked Too Many Times (Google Apps Script)

I want to use Google Apps Script to make custom functions for a spreadsheet. I've made an extremely simple function:
function foo(){
return "bar";
};
The problem is that I need this function in a couple hundred cells. When I paste the function =foo() into all of these cells, the function works in a few of the cells, but in most I get this error: "Service invoked too many times: spreadsheet. Try Utilities.sleep(1000) between calls."
[Screenshot here]
I guess I don't understand why this function, simple as it is, is considered an invocation of the Spreadsheet Services. I'm not even requesting any data (except for the function itself). Is that the problem? And if so, is there a workaround? Custom functions could make Google Spreadsheets infinitely more powerful, but this problem hamstrings the possibility of using a custom function in multiple cells. Suggestions?
(P.S. -- Using the Utilities.sleep() function as suggested by the error message doesn't help at all when all of the cells call their functions simultaneously; it only slows the rate at which individual cells repeatedly call the function.)
According to the Optimization section on the Apps Script Function Guide:
Each time a custom function is used in a spreadsheet, Google Sheets makes a separate call to the Apps Script server. If your spreadsheet contains dozens (or hundreds, or thousands!) of custom function calls, this process can be quite slow.
Consequently, if you plan to use a custom function multiple times on a large range of data, consider modifying the function so that it accepts a range as input in the form of a two-dimensional array, then returns a two-dimensional array that can overflow into the appropriate cells.
To do this, pass in an input that represents the size of the array you'd like to return. When you start executing your function check if the input parameter is an array with input.map. If it is, you can call the the function on each item and return that entire collection.
So in your case like this:
function foo(){
return "bar";
};
You can update the function like this:
function foo(input){
if (input.map) { // Test whether input is an array.
return input.map(foo); // Recurse over array if so.
} else {
// do actual function work here
return "bar";
}
};
And then call it like this:
By calling the function in the spreadsheet, you are invoking the Spreadsheet service by asking it to go round-trip to the server to run the results of your function. As a result, you have make a couple hundred requests in a very short period of time.
One work around might be to add your function a few cells at a time. Of course, when you subsequently open the sheet again, you will probably run into the same problem.
Depending on what your function is trying to accomplish, it might be worth using the built in spreadsheet functions. There is a lot of power there. Writing a function that acts on a range of values instead of a single cell might be another, better, option. It could be triggered through a custom menu item, or by using the script manager.
Keep in mind, batch actions are your best friend when it comes to working with spreadsheets.