Hi everyone! I’m working on an Android app that needs to connect with a Google Sheets file where my client keeps their information. I want to grab specific data from certain columns and put it into text fields in my app, then send any updates back to the same sheet. Should I use the Google Sheets API for this kind of setup? Also wondering if there’s a better way to handle this - maybe saving the info locally on the device first and then syncing it with the sheet later? Looking for the best method to make this work smoothly. If anyone knows good tutorials or has experience with this type of integration, I’d really appreciate some guidance!
I’ve built something similar for a project management app. Google Sheets API works great, but OAuth2 authentication can be a pain on mobile. Definitely implement solid error handling for timeouts and quota limits - learned that one the hard way. Your local storage idea is spot on, especially for offline work. I went with SQLite for caching instead of constantly hitting the API - way better performance. Watch out for data validation before pushing updates back to Sheets. The API gets fussy about formatting. Google’s Workspace dev docs have some examples, but you’ll need to tweak them heavily for your setup.
for sure! if you get the API working, it’s super easy to pull and push data. just keep in mind data conflicts if you’re using local caching. had a few issues with that before, but overall it’s a solid solution. good luck!
Google Sheets API is definitely the way to go. I built something similar last year and learned that your sync strategy makes or breaks the whole thing. Skip real-time updates - they’re a nightmare. Instead, cache everything locally with Room and sync in batches, either on a schedule or when users tap refresh. This avoids quota headaches and works great offline. If it’s for business, set up service accounts for auth. Also throw in exponential backoff for your API calls since rate limiting will hit you eventually. Google’s Android docs are pretty solid once you get past the initial setup pain.