Google Sheets

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Syncs

You can set up as many syncs as you like, and if you make any changes to the content, Lightdash will update the syncs the next time they’re sent. You can also sync a data app to a Google Sheet. Setup is the same, but an app writes one tab per query it runs rather than a single tab — see Scheduled deliveries and syncs for data apps.

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Creating a Sync

All users with editor access or above can create Syncs. To do this, open your chart in view or edit mode, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, then click on Google Sheets Sync. The pop-up shows you a list of any existing Syncs for the saved chart, you also have the option to Create new Sync. Clicking Create new Sync takes you to the configuration screen to setup a new Google Sheets Sync. When you create a Sync, Lightdash also creates a special tab in your Google Sheet called metadata which includes information on when the sheet was last updated and the frequency interval. This allows users to easily understand how often data is refreshed inside their Google Sheet.

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Sync options

• Name: this is the name of your Sync in Lightdash
• Frequency: this is how often your Google Sheet will be synced. You can make this hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or custom - each frequency has its own options. For example, with a monthly schedule, you set the day of the month and the time that you want your Sync to be happen. The custom frequency lets you write out your own custom Cron expression if you need something more specific than our standard options. All times for the scheduler are in UTC.
• Select Google Sheet: Use the file picker to select the Google Sheet that you’d like to sync your chart results to. Note: You need to sync to an existing Google Sheet, so ensure you have created it before you can select it here.
• Save in new tab: when enabled, it lets you set a tab name that will be used to store your sync data. The tab will be created if it doesn’t exist yet in the sheet. This will avoid overwriting the first tab of the sheet.
• Show filters applied: when enabled, adds a three-row summary of the chart’s filters above the synced data. Not available for SQL charts.

The Sync form has no filter or parameter overrides. A Sync runs the chart with the filters and parameters saved on it, so every run of a given Sync writes the same slice of data. To send different filtered versions of the same chart to different sheets (or different tabs of the same sheet), duplicate the chart once per filter combination and set up a separate Sync on each copy. Google Sheets isn’t a destination in the scheduled delivery modal. A weekly overwrite of a Google Sheet is a Sync, not a scheduled delivery — create it from the chart’s three-dot menu as described above. The first time you click Select Google Sheet, Lightdash asks you to sign in to Google and grant access to your Google Drive. If you approve the sign-in without the Drive permission, Lightdash shows Missing authorization to access Google Drive. Click Select Google Sheet again to reopen Google’s consent screen, and check that Google Drive access is selected before you continue. Once you’ve set up all of your Sync options, you can click Sync. In the list of Syncs for a chart, each Sync has a toggle to pause it and a Sync now button to run it immediately. Pausing a Sync stops manual runs too: Sync now stays available while a Sync is paused, but the sync itself is skipped until you re-enable it.

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Overview of your Syncs

Users who have an admin role in your project can access an overview of your Syncs in the Project Settings. In the Syncs & Scheduled deliveries overview page, you can see a list of all of your Syncs (along with your Scheduled Deliveries), their most recent delivery status, and a history of all of the previous deliveries in your project. To access the overview page, just head to your Project Settings, then to the Syncs & Scheduled deliveries tab. Here, you can also click on the three-dot-menu beside each Sync to edit or delete it. Editing a Sync from the overview page will bring you to the same configuration screen as when you create a new Sync. Deleting a Sync from the overview page will remove it from your chart.

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Export a dashboard to Google Sheets

Syncs keep a single chart up to date on a schedule. If you instead want a one-off copy of a whole dashboard — for example a data backup to share alongside a report — you can export the dashboard straight to a new Google Sheet. Open the dashboard, click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner, choose Export dashboard, then pick Google Sheets as the export format. Every export creates a new Google Sheet in your Google Drive. This is not a sync — running the export again never overwrites a sheet you already have, so each export stays a separate snapshot.

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What you get

The new sheet contains:

• Export summary as the first tab: the dashboard name and a link back to it, the time the export ran, and a row for every output listing its tab, the chart it came from, its status, its row count, and a link straight to that tab.
• One tab per output, in dashboard order, for each chart and SQL chart tile.

Outputs that could not be exported still get a tab, containing the reason instead of data, and are marked Failed in the summary. This means a chart that breaks doesn’t silently disappear from the sheet — the rest of the dashboard still exports.

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Before you start

• You need editor access or above on the project, the same as for Syncs.
• Your Google account must be connected to Lightdash. If it isn’t, Lightdash will ask you to connect it the first time you export.
• The export uses your dashboard’s current filters, parameters, and tab selection.

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Google Sheets add-on

The Lightdash Google Sheets add-on runs inside Google Sheets as a sidebar so you can build queries or import saved Lightdash charts without leaving the spreadsheet. Install it from the Google Workspace Marketplace, and see Google Sheets add-on for its capabilities.

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Google API Services User Data Policy

Lightdash’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.