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Prepare Source Data in Google Sheets for Merging with Document Studio

After installing Document Studio, the next step is to prepare your data list in Google Sheets. You can either import data from an Excel spreadsheet or another Google Sheet, upload a CSV file or create your own list manually.

Create Data List Manually​

If you have a small set of data, or if you are taking Document Studio for a test run, you can manually type the data in your Google Sheet.

The first row of the sheet must contains the column titles and each column will correspond to the variable field in your email or document template.

Manual Data List in Google Sheets

Import Excel Data in Google Sheets​

To open a new Google Sheet, type sheet.new in your browser's address bar.

Go to the File menu and click on the Import option. On the screen that appears, select the Upload option and upload the Excel spreadsheet, one that ends with an .xls or .xlsx extension, from you computer. Then, you can either browse for the excel file, or simply drag and drop it.Click the Import Data and all data rows from your Excel file will be copied to the active Google Sheet.

Import Excel in Google Sheets

Copy Data from Another Google Sheet​

If your data records reside in another Google Sheet, you can either run Document Studio directly inside that Google Sheet or copy that data into a new sheet without modifying the original data source.

Open the source spreadsheet and switch to the sheet (workbook) that contains the data records. Click the dropdown next to the sheet name, choose the Copy to option and select the sheet where you would like to copy the source data for merging with Document Studio.

Copy data across Google Sheets

warning

While you may easily use the IMPORTRANGE or IMPORTDATA function in Google Sheets to import data from another Google Sheet or CSV file, it is not recommended since you do not have control over the order of data rows in the sheet.

Google Forms Response​

If your workflows process Google Form responses, you can skip this section as the column headers are automatically added in the response sheet by Google Form. It is however a good idea to have at least one entry in your Google Form that can be used later for previewing the workflow before making it live.

You may however add new formula columns that autofill data based on user's answers in Google Forms.