How to use Google Sheets as a database for your next app

Learn how to use Google Sheets as a database for your no code app

How to use Google Sheets as a database for your next app
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Many small enterprises & solo entrepreneurs store their data in spreadsheets. In the past years Google Spreadsheets evolved as one of the most popular spreadsheet software providers.
The advantage of Google Spreadsheets is that it connects natively to the internet. That enables a bunch of new use cases such as building Web Apps on top of data from Google Spreadsheets.
Building conventional Web Apps generally would require a lot of resources & external service providers. However, thanks to no code software such as Chartmat that’s no longer the case.
The owner of a small business can now just build her own Web App without having any coding knowledge within a matter of hours. And what’s the best part of it? The user always feels in control since she is building the logic of the app.

Meet Chartmat - a no code tool for building a web app on top of your Google Spreadsheet

Chartmat.com allows you to transform data from Google Sheets into a Web App within minutes. You simply connect your Google Drive Account to your Chartmat Account & you can select whatever spreadsheet you want to use as the database for your Webapp.
Everything you build on Chartmat is automatically mobile friendly. The data between your Chartmat Web App & Google Spreadsheet is synced in real time since Google Spreadsheets essentially act as the Backend of your Chartmat Web App.

What are your advantages of using no code Software:

  • You can build a Web App without committing to an initial investment (e.g. expenses for a web agency)
  • You can easily make changes to your web app without depending on a developer
  • You can implement custom solutions, layout & design
  • You don’t need to worry about deployment or hosting
Additionally, in the case of Chartmat you are in control of your data since all the data that is displayed or collected through your web app is hosted inside your Google Drive Account.

Things you can build on top of your data from Google Sheets

You can use Chartmat in a number of ways. In the following we briefly explore the building blocks that a Chartmat Web App consists of:
  • Forms: allow you to write data back to your Google Spreadsheet
  • Charts: allow you to visualize your Spreadsheet data through different chart types
  • Tables: allow you to show your Google Spreadsheet data in a table format
  • Grids: allow you to display the data from Google Spreadsheet in a directory format
  • Markdowns: allow you to fully customize with HTML & CSS how you would like to display the data from your Google Spreadsheet
All elements are accessible through any browser and are automatically mobile friendly. Furthermore, you can easily embed all building blocks or entire Chartmat Web Apps into another website.

How to get started building on top of your Google Sheets Database

In the following we present the required steps for building Web Apps with Chartmat on top of data from Google Spreadsheets:
  1. Sign up for a Chartmat account. Note: you can try Chartmat for free for 14 days - we ask for your credit card information but you won’t be charged until your trial ends. Thereafter you can always refund the first month in case you are not convinced.
  1. Create your Chartmat Workspace: it allows you to manage access rights & to create private & public Web Apps. In order to get started you need to connect your Workspace to your Google Drive Account to be able to access the Google Spreadsheets for your Web App. Note that we only ask for the minimum amount of permissions necessary in order to enable you to build Web Apps.
  1. Next you need to decide what you want to build. You have the following options:
  • Build something on top of your existing data in Google Sheets
  • Copy one of our templates & customize it for your use case
  • Start building a new app from scratch with a blank Google Sheet
If you need further assistance check out our help section or reach out to our support through the live chat.