Searching Google Sheets and returning results in Chatfuel: How to implement?

Other Questions Google Sheets
1

Hey everyone! I’m working on a Chatfuel bot and I’m stuck. I’ve got the user input part down, but I’m lost on how to search Google Sheets and send back results.

Here’s what I want to do:

  1. Get user input (done)
  2. Save it in Chatfuel (done)
  3. Search the first row of a Google Sheet
  4. If found, send the text from the second row as a message
  5. If not found, send a pre-made Chatfuel block

I’ve tried watching tons of videos about Chatfuel, Google Sheets, APIs, and JSON, but I’m still confused. Can anyone help me figure out steps 3-5? I’m open to using Python, JSON, or Chatfuel integrations.

Thanks in advance for any help or tips!

2

I’ve actually tackled a similar challenge recently, and I can share what worked for me. Instead of directly connecting Chatfuel to Google Sheets, I found it easier to use a middleware solution. I set up a simple API using Google Apps Script, which acted as a bridge between Chatfuel and my Google Sheet.

Here’s the gist of how I did it:

  1. Created a Google Apps Script that could search my Sheet based on input parameters.
  2. Published this script as a web app, which gave me a URL to make GET requests.
  3. In Chatfuel, I used the JSON API plugin to send requests to this URL, passing the user’s input as a parameter.
  4. The script would search the Sheet and return the appropriate response, which Chatfuel could then display.

This approach avoided the need for external hosting or complex integrations. It took some trial and error, but once set up, it worked smoothly. The key was keeping the Apps Script simple and focused on just searching and returning data.

Hope this gives you a different perspective on solving your problem!

3

I’d recommend exploring the Google Sheets API directly for this task. It offers robust functionality for reading and querying sheet data. You can set up a server-side script (Python works well) that handles requests from Chatfuel, interacts with the Sheets API, and returns the appropriate response.

Here’s a high-level approach:

  1. Set up a Google Cloud project and enable the Sheets API.
  2. Create a simple Flask app to handle incoming requests from Chatfuel.
  3. Use the google-auth and google-auth-oauthlib libraries to authenticate your app.
  4. Implement the search logic using the googleapiclient library.
  5. Deploy your app to a platform like Heroku or Google Cloud Run.
  6. Configure Chatfuel to send requests to your app’s endpoint.

This method gives you full control over the search logic and response handling. It’s more complex initially but offers greater flexibility and scalability in the long run.

4

hey, have you considered using zapier? it can connect chatfuel with google sheets pretty easily. you’d setup a zap that triggers when chatfuel gets input, searches your sheet, and sends results back. no coding needed. might be worth checkin out if youre still stuck!