posting to google sheets - javascript

I am trying to create a web form that will post data to my google sheet. I am finding that the only way to do this is to use OAuth2 where the client needs to authenticate with google. Is there a way that I can post to my own sheet without having to do the OAuth? I want to avoid having the google screen popup when trying to submit the form. Anyone know how to do this, without a hack? If it has to be done server-side, I am using PHP. Thanks

If it's your Google sheet that you are using for all visitors, then you only need to follow the flow once to obtain a refresh token and use a service account. This obviously has to be done server-side, otherwise you expose your credentials to every visitor.
This guide Using OAuth 2.0 for Server to Server Applications explains the process.

Related

Authenticating Google Calendar API from server to server directly using php

Background:
Creating a project where a user can create/edit/delete a calendar events on my calendar without the need to authenticate themselves. They can add or remove users on that calendar event. I have credentials to my google account to authenticate the requests. I want to talk directly to google calendar api without the need to insert username/password (which I can provide from the backend, if required).
Technology:
PHP7.0/ SQL SERVER/ JavaScript
Issue/Requirement:
I have created the project in Google and added credentials for "service account key". I have all the required keys for creating the project. How do I talk to the google server directly without using a frontend page or console and directly go ahead with creating an event?
Any suggestions welcomed. On a time crunch here.
How to quickly set up a PHP project using Google Calendar API: https://developers.google.com/calendar/quickstart/php
How to authenticate with a service account using Google APIs on PHP: https://github.com/googleapis/google-api-php-client#authentication-with-service-accounts
How to create events using the Calendar API using PHP language: https://developers.google.com/calendar/create-events#metadata
Using all the examples above you should be able to easily build yourself the solution you want.
Furthermore, I would suggest you check out the community guidelines on how to ask good questions.

How to allow users to access my Google API application without authenticating for it?

I've developed a small webapp, that pulls raw data from a Google Spreadsheet and builds it on a html, so my website users can see, filter and navigate through the data.
For that, I'm using Google Sheets API v4, but even going to an HTML, users are asked to "AUTHORIZE" access using their Google Accounts, before seeing the table/data.
Is there a way to display this table/data on the HTML, without requesting users to authorize through OAuth?
If you're dealing with accessing data and performing Google API calls, authorization is Google's way to protect and secure the user's data.
If you want to display the data without needing to undergo authorization, publish it to the web:
File -> Publish to the web. An embed code which contains a public url will be provided for you.
Here's a sample of my public data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mvFPT2Xx8bNEMUdPC9TDOexzNqVS399bxQATV3JVOyg/pubhtml?widget=true&amp

Is it possible to show blog view counter with information Google Analytics

I have a static blog using Jekyll hosted on GitHub. I have set up Google Analytics for it and works well enough.
Now I want to show how many people viewed each post in my blog. I found Google Analytics JavaScript API to get the information. But it seems that this API uses OAuth for data access. So I think this might not be the API I needed.
Is it possible to do so with Google Analytics? I don't have any server since it's hosted on GitHub.
I finally solved this problem by Google Analytics superProxy as suggested in the comment of #EikePierstorff.
I wrote a blog on it.
Here's the main idea.
I first build a project on Google App Engile, with which I authenticate for the access of my Google Analytics. Then a URL of query (which can be pageview of certain pages) is generated in JSON format. I can set the refresh rate on this GAE project so that the JSON file can be updated from Google Analytic.
Sounds almost perfect to me. Thank you all guys for help!
You can't query the Google Analytics API without authorization by someone, that's the most important thing to remember.
It's certainly possible to display Google Analytics data on your website to users who don't have access to your account, but in order to do that, someone with access to the account needs to authorize and get an access token in order to run queries.
Normally this is done server side, and once you have a valid access token you can query the API client side (to display charts and graph, etc.). Access tokens are typically valid for 1 hour, so if you want to have your website up all the time, you'll also have to deal with refreshing the access token once it expires.
Now, since you're using Github Pages and don't have a back end, which means all the authorization will need to happen client side. While it's technically possible to do the same thing client side as server side, it's generally not a good idea because private data like your client secret, refresh token, etc. will be visible in the source code.
Applications that do auth client side typically don't authorize on behalf of a user. They require the users themselves to go through an auth flow for security reasons (as I just explained), but that would mean those users 1) have to log in, and 2) can only see the analytics data they have access to, which probably isn't what you want.
--
What you can do is run reports periodically yourself and export that data to a Google Spreadsheet. Google Spreadsheets allow you to embed charts and graphs of data as an <iframe> in external pages, so that might be an option.
At the end of the day, if you can't authorize server side you'll have to come up with some kind of workaround to make this happen.
Here are a few possibly helpful links that might point you in the right direction:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/google-analytics-spreadsheet-add-on
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/embed
https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/report-automation-magic

Authenticating to the Google Analytics Core Reporting API for One Account

I want to display the number of times a video has been viewed using the core reporting API via Javascript. However, the API is designed with OAuth, for building applications and not just logging into my account to get the event count.
Is there a way to login for just my account via Javascript?
Thanks,
Matthew.
I think what you are looking for is a Service account. To my knowledge you cant use a Service account with JavaScript due to security issues with the key file.
What you could try and do is to authenticate the script once using normal Oauth2 then save the refresh token to the file and hard code that into your script and send that. But I wouldn't recommend it as then anyone that checks your script will also be able to access it. So basically you have the same security issues you had with using a Service account.
As you can see doing what you are trying to do with JavaScript isn't really going to work. As you can see this is something I have also tried unsuccessfully in the past to do. I recommend you try and do this with some kind of server sided scripting language, like PHP.

Accessing Google Analytics API data from javascript without authentication

I wish to access Google Analytics data through their API using Javascript.
Basically I want to display on a website a list of the most visited pages for the past week/month. I can only use javascript for this.
I found this example on the official site http://code.google.com/p/google-api-javascript-client/wiki/Samples#Google_Analytics_API
Is there any way of accessing Google Analytics data without authentication? Do I need to somehow load a username/password in? To be clear, I want a website (that has Google Analytics tracking) to load analytics data from its own account.
I thought there might be a way to make certain data public, then query that somehow... Or perhaps create a limited user to access it. I can find no examples of either.
You can't access GA withouth authentication for rather the same reason you cannot access you bank account without authentication (because that would allow everybody else to access your account without authentication which might cause some inconvenience).
Google provides a complete example for GA access via Javascript: https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/articles/hello-analytics-api. However I don't think that's what you want (I think for that you need to be logged in to Google to actually retrieve data).
You could however use Google Apps Script to pull data into a Google Spreadsheet and embed that into your page (at least I think that should be safe).
Updated: Google has since released the Google Analytics superProxy which allows to share Analytics data with the public safely.

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