Google Sheets API setup using Google Cloud

A goal of this package is to enable the use of Cloud-based spreadsheet editing, such as Google Sheets, for collaborative data entry without requiring customized, complex data entry applications The package could also have used MS Office on-line excel editing and that’s a future feature. The package is curently geared for Google Sheets.

In previous versions of this package, one had to create Google Cloud projects to enable accessing Google Sheets via APIs and this vignette had detailed instructions for setting this up. Howeve, this package now uses the excellent Googlesheets4 package from the Posit company, which comes with a built-in default OAuth app. No extra cloud setup or credentials files are needed.

However, the following set-up for google drive is recommended.

Create a “shared drive”: if you create a shared folder inside your institutional Google Drive/Workspace, and then share that with your collaborators, there can be problems if you leave your institution. If your institutional account is revoked (you leave or retire) then your google drive and all the items within may disappear. However, “Shared drives” persist. Create a new ‘shared drive’ for your collaborative data entry project, which may require working with your institutions Google Workspace administrator (e.g. IT Department).

**Give Collaborators permissions as “content edits”

Global Access Not necessary If you want to widely collaborate or share your data, you may allow “anyone with the link” to read the files in your folder (we’ve done this for our example project), but this is not necessary to enable collaborators to read your sheets.

First access requires web browser When you or your collaborators first access your google sheets with this package, it will require a web browser to log-in with your google credentials. R will attempt to automatically launch a web browser. For most of us, that will work well. For those using Linux or command-line access (e.g. on a shared research computer) this may be a problem and you’ll have to launch a separate browser process yourself.