Dotwave Import from Google Sheets
Google Sheets is where a lot of working data lives — budgets, trackers, exports that a teammate maintains by hand. Dotwave connects to a Sheet by URL, imports the tab you choose, and can re-pull the latest values whenever you ask. This article walks through the sharing requirement, the import steps, and how live refresh actually behaves.
Requirements
For Dotwave to read a Sheet, the document must be shared so that the connection can reach it:
- The Sheet must be shared with "Anyone with the link" set to at least Viewer access. This lets Dotwave read the tab you point it at without a per-user sign-in.
- Private sheets that cannot be link-shared require a service-account setup. If your organization's policy forbids link sharing, contact support to configure a service-account connection scoped to the specific Sheets you need.
Only the data in the sheet is imported — not formulas. Values are captured at import time.
How to import
From the Data sources page, click Add data source and choose Google Sheets.
Copy the full URL from your browser's address bar while the Sheet is open, then paste it into Dotwave.
Dotwave lists the tabs in the workbook. Pick the one that holds the table you want. Each import pulls a single tab.
Dotwave reads the selected tab, infers column types, and creates the dataset.
Live refresh
When you enable the Live option on a Google Sheets dataset, Dotwave re-pulls the latest values from the Sheet each time you click Refresh on the dataset. This is on-demand: Dotwave does not auto-sync on a schedule and does not poll the Sheet in the background. You stay in control of exactly when the numbers update, which is important when a colleague is mid-edit and you do not want half-finished rows flowing into your dashboards.
Because only values are imported — never formulas — a Sheet cell that computes a total will import as the resulting number, not the underlying formula. If someone changes a formula in the Sheet, the new computed values appear the next time you refresh. Column headers should stay stable between refreshes so that your cleaning recipes and charts keep mapping to the right fields.
Keep a Google Sheets dataset tidy by pointing Dotwave at a dedicated "export" tab that references your working tabs. You can restructure the messy working area freely, and as long as the export tab's shape stays constant, every refresh lands cleanly.
Troubleshooting access
If Dotwave cannot read the Sheet, the cause is almost always sharing. Re-open the Sheet, click Share, and confirm that "Anyone with the link" is set to Viewer or higher. Confirm you pasted the URL of the workbook itself and not a filtered view or a published-to-web link. If the Sheet must remain private, contact support to arrange the service-account connection described above.