Lo-Fi Python

Copying a Cell Value to a New Google Sheet With Apps Script

I've been messing around with Apps Script lately and am finding it useful. The below Apps Script was created with a few prompts to Bing Copilot. First, I asked Bing:

Write a Google sheets formula that copies the value in cell B10 to another sheet and also fills another column with today's date

...and a later prompt:

how can i make this script add a new row each time in the target sheet and appending to existing rows?

I refined with some followup prompts to write a script. It copies cell B10's value from a sheet then fills in a row in a different sheet with cell B10's value and today's date.

AI allows me to do things that would have taken more time to figure out before. For example, Bing just tapped the appendRow function to handle the updating of values without overwriting existing data. We don't need to know the specific Apps Script functions to write code in a new language anymore. AI can just fill in those details for us.

Apps Script to Copy a Cell Value and Create New Row with Today's Date

In this example, one sheet is named "Summary" and the other target sheet is named "Daily" with 2 column names.

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function copyTotalValue() {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var sourceSheet = ss.getSheetByName("Summary");
  var targetSheet = ss.getSheetByName("Daily");

  // Get the value from B10 in Summary
  var value = sourceSheet.getRange("B10").getValue();

  // Get today's date
  var today = new Date();

  // Append a new row to the Daily sheet with the value and today's date
  targetSheet.appendRow([value, today]);
}

According to Bing, Apps Script is a JavaScript dialect:

Google Apps Script is based on JavaScript. It uses a subset of JavaScript and provides additional built-in functions...

Automate The Script From the Apps Script Jobs Dashboard

Go to the Apps Script Jobs dashboard.

Add a new script to run Apps Script.

Click the blue "Add Trigger" button to create a new job.

Supplementary Reading

Apps Script Reference Overview

Apps Script API

Apps Script Spreadsheet Service