Get Shape Data and Generate Charts using Google Sheets™ Integration

SmartDraw lets you create diagrams from data and connect data to specific shapes for additional information. This latest update lets you connect to data stored in Google Sheets™ to generate a chart or enrich a shape with data.

Get Shape Data and Generate Charts using Google Sheet Integration

Linking to Google Sheets for Shape Data

Any shape in SmartDraw can be assigned a set of fields and values. These show in the data panel and in a tooltip on the shape itself so you can drill down into details without having to clutter the shape itself with the same information.

Shape data is a great way to simplify complexity for diagrams like organizational charts, sales maps, and network diagrams.

Until today, you could add data manually or import a CSV file from your desktop. Now you can also connect to a Google spreadsheet.

You'll want to start by setting up the URL in Google Sheets. Open a document in Google Sheets and go to the File menu and select Publish to the web.

Make sure you choose Comma-separated values (.csv) in the second drop-down and hit Publish.

Now you have a URL you can use in SmartDraw to link to your data.

Linking to Google Sheets for Shape Data

Linking to data stored in Google Sheets instead of just uploading a data file, makes it so that you have the option to automatically update the data in SmartDraw when the spreadsheet is updated.

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Generating a Chart using Data in Google Sheets

You can also import data to generate a chart like a bar graph or pie chart.

Previously, you could import a properly formatted CSV to generate a bar graph, line chart, pie chart, or another selected chart type.

You can now import data from Google Sheets to generate a chart.

First, get a public URL from Google Sheets by choosing Publish to the web under the File menu.

Select Comma-separated values (.csv) and hit Publish.

You can copy-paste the URL from Google Sheets into SmartDraw to generate your chart.

If you use a URL as your data source, you can also turn on auto-updating to automatically refresh your chart.

Generate chart from Google Sheets