Transfer Google Spreadsheet Cell Value generated from ImportRange to another sheet and cell automatically

Question

I have sheet named origin that displays set of data Col A:B via ImportRange I have a sheet named destination

What I wanted to do:

• When ImportData changes (a new item is added in the origin sheet) I wanted to copy that item and paste it in the destination sheet.

What I dont want to happen:

• Is copy data that are already existing in the destination sheet.
• When ImportData Origin is sorted, the display in the origin sheet is also changed. In this case I should still be able to copy data that are not existing in the destination sheet even if both sheets are no longer sorted the same.

Any idea on how I can achieve this? Thank you so much

Answer 1

Explanation:

I would advice you to use a formula in the destination sheet, something like:

UNIQUE(IMPORTRANGE("url", "origin:A1:B"))

so you can have the unique items of the origin sheet in the destination sheet.

The reason that I am suggesting that is because you are looking for a trigger behaviour. Namely, when a new value is added in a cell, grab this value and send it to another spreadsheet. The problem with this approach is that Google-Apps-Script triggers are not triggered by scripts nor formulas, but only by user edits. In other words, if a cell is modified by your import range formula, there is not a direct GAS solution which can figure that out. Only workarounds exist which might have limitations and they are very specific to your exact use case.

Workarounds

• See this thread for some info and references.

• You can use the Properties Service which you can store some sort of data that is bound the script. In this way, you can create a Time-driven trigger which will run every 1 minute or so and check if there are changes to the original data. If a new value is added, update the property and send the data to the destination sheet. If no new data is added, do nothing.