# Beeminding a value in a spreadsheet

**URL:** <https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778>\
**Category:** Akrasia\
**Created:** [May 11, 2015, 8:41am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778 "2015-05-11T08:41:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![robin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/robin/32/127_2.png) [@robin](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/robin)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 8:41am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/1 "2015-05-11T08:41:41Z")

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I am currently grading exams (using a spreadsheet), and beeminding the total number of exams graded so far. This number is given by the value of a cell in my spreadsheet, which is in my Dropbox. So far, I’ve been entering the data manually, but would love to automate it.

Has anyone ever automated the beeminding of a spreadsheet cell value?

In an ideal world, I would use an IFTTT recipe along the lines of: IF the spreadsheet is updated in Dropbox THEN send the value of cell A3 to Beeminder. But it doesn’t look like IFTTT can do that. I would also be happy with a solution which checks the value of the cell on a regular basis (e.g. once an hour).  
I’m using several computers for this with a variety of OSs, so I’d like to avoid writing a shell script.

Any pointers would be appreciated!

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**Author:** ![insti](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/insti/32/545_2.png) [@insti](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/insti)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 8:47am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/2 "2015-05-11T08:47:11Z")

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What’s your spreadsheet program?  
It might be possible to make a macro that sends a datapoint when the cell is updated.

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**Author:** ![chelsea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a3d4f5/32.png) [@chelsea](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/chelsea)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 9:04am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/3 "2015-05-11T09:04:37Z")

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i’ve used a zapier zap to update beeminder when a new line was added to a spreadsheet on google drive. there’s also an option to trigger on new or updated rows.

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**Author:** ![robin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/robin/32/127_2.png) [@robin](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/robin)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/4 "2015-05-11T12:33:47Z")

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Thanks for the suggestion, I don’t know why I didn’t think of using a macro!  
I’m using LibreOffice, so I should manage to get it to work.

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**Author:** ![robin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/robin/32/127_2.png) [@robin](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/robin)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/5 "2015-05-11T12:38:13Z")

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Thanks, I hadn’t noticed that Zapier had the option to send the value of a cell. If I can’t get the macro to work, I’ll switch from Dropbox to Google Sheets for this.

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**Author:** ![insti](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/insti/32/545_2.png) [@insti](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/insti)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/beeminding-a-value-in-a-spreadsheet/778/6 "2015-05-11T13:32:15Z")

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If you do get a macro to work, post it here so others can work out how to do it. 🏆