Intent
Keep spreadsheets current without manual exports.
When to use
- Reports need scheduled refreshes.
- Manual updates are a time sink.
- Stakeholders depend on fresh data.
Core mechanics
- Schedule a refresh job.
- Fetch data and write to sheets.
- Notify on failures.
Implementation checklist
- Define refresh cadence and data sources.
- Back up or snapshot before overwriting.
- Write data with stable ordering.
- Log row counts and timestamps.
- Alert on errors or stale data.
Failure modes and mitigations
- Overwriting manual edits -> separate input vs output tabs.
- API limits -> batch and retry.
- Stale credentials -> monitor auth failures.
Observability and validation
- Last refresh time and row counts.
- Error logs and alert status.
Artifacts
- Refresh script.
- Backup snapshots or exports.