posted Feb 3, 2010, 8:56 PM by Rick Anderson
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updated Feb 3, 2010, 9:51 PM
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Scripts was initially released in August of 2009 - this was exciting news at the time as it gave Javascript developers a powerful platform to develop business automation for those with Google Apps Premier accounts. Google has upped the ante by releasing this ability into all versions of Google Apps.
The Google announcement with various links to helpful pages and examples.
From the Google Apps Script welcome page:
With scripts, you can: - Create your own custom spreadsheet functions
- Automate repetitive tasks (e.g. process responses to Google Docs forms)
- Link multiple Google products together (e.g. send emails or schedule Calendar events from a list of addresses in a Spreadsheet)
- Customize existing Google products (e.g. add custom buttons or menus to run your own scripts)
Google Apps Script provides: - Easy interaction with different Google Products and capabilities using JavaScript APIs
- Fast development:
- use standard JavaScript
- use Google's online Web Script Editor or your favorite Desktop development tool
- Basic collaboration and sharing support
- Execution and hosting of scripts on the Google cloud
- Basic support for event handling that can run even when users are offline
- Easy deployment and maintenance
- Standard methods of security using OAuth: users or domain administrators have to grant each script access to the data it needs to run.
Users write scripts in JavaScript using libraries designed to provide a powerful interface with Google products. If you already are a JavaScript developer, a key difference is that scripts run on Google Servers instead of user browsers. As a result, direct operations on the client-side DOM are not supported, although some restricted functionality is provided. Your code executes server-side, and operates on the Google products you've coded for.
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