I'm building a Retool Workflow to execute an SQL query and push the results to a Google Sheet. The primary goal is to regularly "overwrite" the entire contents of a specific sheet with the latest query results.
I'm using the Google Sheets integration in the workflow, but I've noticed that the Google Sheet "Action" options don't seem to have a direct "Overwrite Sheet" feature. There's no option to simply replace the existing sheet data with the new query result. I can see the "append" option, but appending is not what I want; I need to completely replace the existing data.
Is there a recommended approach or workaround to achieve this complete overwrite functionality? Ideally, I'd like a way to clear the existing sheet contents and then write the new data in a single automated process.
Any suggestions or examples would be greatly appreciated!
It looks like you've got a couple options here. You could simply clear the contents before updating the sheet, so it's emptied first.
It also looks like you can provide a range when you update the content, which might allow you to just specify the sheet by name as a a parameter and then push the contents into the sheet, which should result in over-writing everything that's there. See the docs here.
Am I correct in understanding that both methods involve using the 'Run JS Code (javascript)' Resource? Because I couldn't find any settings to achieve this directly within the Retool 'Google Sheets' Resource itself.
Yes, that was using the API directly. If you've set up the Google Sheets resource in Retool, you should be able to accomplish it with the Update a spreadsheet option, clicking "Use A1 notation" and setting that to the value of your sheet. Keep in mind, if your new data isn't the same size/smaller, you might need to first clear your data by updating it with an empty array.
You can achieve that by doing something like this:
Which would empty the first 20 rows x 10 columns. The code in the values box is
The attached image is very helpful. Thank you.
From your suggested solution, I understand that the steps are as follows: 1. add Update a spreadsheet, 2. add Append data to a spreadsheet.
I will try implementing this solution. I appreciate your assistance.
If you're basically clearing out the spreadsheet and replacing all the content, I would actually make it
Update a Spreadsheet - blank out all the cells
Update a Spreadsheet - insert the new data
Appending will add the data below the existing content, which should still work if you're blanking everything out, but updating twice is probably more logical.
