Schedule Automatic Updates

A common use of Blockspring is to create reports that automatically update their data every hour, day, week, or month.

Blockspring lets you create an automatically updating report by using connectors that get data, and then scheduling them to run at some frequency.

This guide explains how to add a connector to your spreadsheet.

Schedule a connector to run automatically:

1. Open the Blockspring Plugin.

In Google Sheets, this is in the top toolbar under "Add-ons". In Excel, this is in the top toolbar under "Blockspring". Log-in to Blockspring if needed.

2. Choose a frequency

When you open the Blockspring plugin, you will see a list of all connectors added to the spreadsheet. Click the dropdown under "Schedule" in a connector's card. Choose a frequency in this dropdown.

No further action is needed. Your connector will now run at that scheduled frequency.

Will my connector run automatically if the sheet is closed?

In Google Sheets, the connector will run even if the spreadsheet is closed.
In Excel, the connector will not run if the spreadsheet is closed.

When will my connector run?

  • Your connector does not run immediately after choosing a frequency.
  • Your connector will run at some point within the chosen frequency. This is chosen randomly by Google Sheets. For example if you chose the frequency "hourly", Google Sheets will pick some minute within every hour to run your connector.
  • Your connector will always run at that same point within the chosen frequency. If Google Sheets chose minute "46" of the hour to run your connector, then your connector will always run at minute 46. So it will run at 12:46, 1:46, 2:46, etc.