Google apps scripting, count streak - google-apps-script

Question

Column A has a timestamp in ascending order. Column G has employee names. Each cell in Column L has either a 1, a 0, or is blank. I'm attempting to calculate the latest streak of 1's in Column L, per employee. My current attempts have involved a list of employee names with the following filter, "filter L:L where G:G = employee name and L:L is not blank". My thought was to nest this filter inside a custom formula that iterates through the filtered results, counting the streak of 1s and stopping at the first 0, returning the count of ones. Since the timestamps are in ascending order, I would need it to iterate from the last row up (or figure out how to change my data imports to append to the top of the sheet instead of the bottom). I have very little programming experience, but here was my failed attempt. How incredibly far off am I? (btw, I only just realized I need it to iterate from bottom up):
function streak() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet()
var range = sheet.getActiveRange();
var cell = sheet.getActiveCell();
var value = cell.getValue();
for (i in range) {
var count = 0
if (value = 1) {
count += 1;
} <br>
return count;
} <br>
} <br>

Answer 1

You are sort of close but depending on what you want to do, this could end up being quite complex. Nevertheless, you are on the right track.
What you want to do first is get the values for the active range on your spreadsheet.
var myDataVals = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getActiveRange().getValues();
This will assign a 2-dimensional array to myDataVals.
From here you can loop through the outer array (row by row) and then the inner array within each (column by column). There are many ways to solve this question and it really depends on exactly what you're trying to do. You can learn more about basic JavaScript programming here: https://www.javascript.com/resources
I wrote a sample function that you can play around with. My solution was to iterate through the rows (outer array) and then assign them to an object where the keys are the employee names; this effectively sorts the rows by name. Then I sorted the rows within each name by timestamp value in descending order. Then, starting from the first (most recent) timestamp, I check to see if column L has a 1 or a 0. If I find a 1, I increment the number located in the streaks object at the key with the name by 1. If I find a 0, the streak is broken and I exit the while loop by changing my streakEnded boolean to true. If the cell is blank or the value is anything other than a 1 or 0, no action is taken and the loop proceeds until it is stopped or there are no more rows remaining.
Finally, the streaks object is returned. From there you could make a new page in the sheet, or send the results in an email, or anything else you may want to do. For now, I just logged the object to the script logger. You can see the results by choosing (View > Logs) in the script editor. Make sure you've highlighted the range of cells!
function streak() {
var activeRangeVals, allStreaks, columns;
// Get the active range as a 2-dimensional array of values
activeRangeVals = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet().getActiveRange().getValues();
// Define which columns contain what data in the active Range
// There are better ways to do this (named ranges)
// but this was quickest for me.
columns = {
'name': 6, // G
'streak': 11, // L
'time': 0 // A
};
allStreaks = getStreaks(getEmployeeRowsObject(activeRangeVals));
Logger.log(allStreaks);
return allStreaks;
function getEmployeeRowsObject(data) {
// Create an empty object to hold employee data
var activeName, activeRow, employees = {}, i = 0;
// Iterate through the data by row and assign rows to employee object
// using employee names as the key
for(i = 0; i < data.length; i+= 1) {
// Assign the active row by copying from the array
activeRow = data[i].slice();
// Assign the active name based on info provided in the columns object
activeName = activeRow[columns['name']];
// If the employee is already defined on the object
if(employees[activeName] !== undefined) {
// Add the row to the stack
employees[activeName].push(activeRow);
// If not:
} else {
// Define a new array with the first row being the active row
employees[activeName] = [activeRow];
}
}
return employees;
}
function getStreaks(employees) {
var activeRow, activeStreak, i = 0, streaks = {}, streakEnded;
for(employee in employees) {
activeRow = employees[employee];
// Sort by timestamp in descending order (most recent first)
activeRow = activeRow.sort(function(a, b) {
return b[columns['time']].getTime() - a[columns['time']].getTime();
});
i = 0, streaks[employee] = 0, streakEnded = false;
while(i < activeRow.length && streakEnded === false) {
activeStreak = parseInt(activeRow[i][columns['streak']]);
if(activeStreak === 1) {
streaks[employee] += 1;
} else if(activeStreak === 0) {
streakEnded = true;
}
i += 1;
}
}
return streaks;
}
}