MALE SPEAKER: You there.
What's your name?
WES CHUN: Uh, it's Wes.
MALE SPEAKER: Wes, huh?
You know, I'm not really a fan of employees
with one syllable names.
It implies a certain lack of conviction.
What's your last name?
WES CHUN: Chun, sir.
MALE SPEAKER: You're killing me here.
All right, Wes Chun.
I got a question for you.
We got dozens of videos on our YouTube channel, right?
WES CHUN: Yes, sir.
MALE SPEAKER: Well, I need information about them.
Who are our users?
Where are they coming from?
What are they doing?
Are they eating anything?
If so.
Is it cereal.
And if so, what kind?
And is there a toy inside?
You got that?
You know what?
Scratch that.
Just give me view counts of our views
and those of our competitors, and somebody around here
get me some cereal.
I am starving.
Oh, and Wes, I'm going to need that by lunchtime today.
WES CHUN: Lunch, sir?
MALE SPEAKER: Wes, I'm not saying
you're going to be fired if you can't get it done by lunch,
but I'm not saying you're not going to be fired, either.
Oh, and put some pants on.
I'm running a business, not a summer camp.
WES CHUN: Yes, sir.
Geez.
Going to each video to get the view count is taking forever.
How am I supposed to finish by lunch time?
MALE SPEAKER: Hey.
Google Apps Script.
It talks to YouTube.
MALE SPEAKER: Wes Chun, what is wrong with these view count
reports?
It's just a bunch of gobbledygook.
Is this secret code?
WES CHUN: Yes, sir.
Let me refresh your screen for you.
MALE SPEAKER: Oh.
Oh, that is nice.
Good job, Wes Chun.
I think you're going to find a little something
extra in your paycheck this week.
It's a ladybug.
My daughters into insects.
It's a whole thing.
Anyway, nice work.
Hey, everybody, we're going to break early for lunch.
Wes's treating.
WES CHUN: Actually, it's Wesley, sir.
MALE SPEAKER: Oh, two syllable man.
I knew I liked the cut of your jib.
Good job, Wesley.
WES CHUN: Do you want this to be you?
Of course you do.
New to Apps Script?
It's a programmatic way to access data in Google Apps.
Already use it?
Think it's only for Google Docs and Sheets?
Think again.
With the YouTube data APA, you could be your boss's hero, too.
This is Google engineer Wesley Chun,
and I'm going to help you get started on making an app just
like the one you saw.
Start by going to your Google Drive
and creating a Google Sheet.
Now put on your coding hat, and let's go to the computer.
So I've created a brand new sheet here,
and I've already added three columns-- video ID, the title,
and the number of views.
So go ahead and make one of those,
and add those three columns as well.
And then think of a video that you want to get information on.
I've already got one in mind, so if you have one, too,
just go to YouTube and then go up to the top in the URL.
You can find the video ID.
And then grab that and paste that
into the very first available cell, which is A2.
Now let's take a look at some code
by pulling down Tools and Script Editor.
And what you'll get, as you've seen
before in previous episodes, is you're
going to get presented with a bunch of templates,
and you're going to just choose Blank Project because our code
is going to be pretty short.
And what you're going to do is you're
going to enter code like this, but wait
until I describe each line first before you type them in.
So change the name of the function to Get Video Info.
That's the first step.
On lines two and three, we grab the current active sheet
and the data item in cell A2.
So this is code that we've already seen before.
You need to talk to the sheet, and then you
need to get the range of cells, and then
you need to pull out the specific values.
In this particular case, we're only looking at one cell,
and that's A2.
The magic happens on line four, which
calls the YouTube data API.
And you do that by calling YouTube.videos, then
its list method.
The first parameter in the call to the list method
are the video resources that you're interested in.
Each video has multiple data sets to choose from.
For example, Statistics has information like view count,
likes, and dislikes, while Snippet has the publish date,
title, and description.
There are others with useful information, too, not just
the pair that we're requesting here.
The second parameter is easier.
This is just the ID of the video that we want to get data on.
Since we're only asking for one video,
we get back a JavaScript array that only has one row,
so we save it in line five.
On line six, we pull out the two items
that we're interested in-- the title, which
comes from Snippet, and the view count, which
comes from Statistics.
Finally, they're written back to the spreadsheet
in cells B2 and C2 by using the set values method call.
And that's it.
But before we run the script, we need to first enable access
to the YouTube data API.
Otherwise, we're not going anywhere.
So go up to the Resources menu and pull down
Advanced Google Services.
Before we do that, we have to enter a project name.
So let's call it Get Video Info.
Now, once you have the Advanced Google Services dialog box,
scroll all the way down and find the YouTube data API,
and turn it on.
Now, this yellow dialog box pops up
that says, "You must enable this in the Google Developers
Console," as well.
So go ahead and click that.
And then here, on the API Library page,
look for YouTube data API, select it, and then press
the blue Enable API button.
Once it's done, you can go back and confirm
that it has been turned on by clicking on the Enabled APIs
link up at the top.
And there it is.
All right.
That part is done.
Let's go back to the Advanced Google Services
and then click OK to accept that.
All right.
So once we're back here, we can click Run to execute it.
And there's the yellow dialog box.
But ah, here comes the OAuth, where
we need to give authorization to this script
to get access to your spreadsheet data,
as well as to talk to the YouTube data API.
So click Continue.
You'll see the familiar OAuth 2 dialog,
and we want this access, so we're going to click Allow.
And once the authorization has gone through,
you'll see the dialog box run, and once it's done,
it disappears.
And if we're lucky, we will see the YouTube video
title and its view count.
Cool.
Now all we have to do is name this thing,
and then we'll be done.
Call it anything you want.
I'll call mine Video Statistics.
So great.
You were able to write an Apps Script
app that talks to the YouTube data
API that pulls down information that you're looking for.
Now you can impress your boss, too.
Wow, wasn't that cool?
This isn't as complex as the one I ran earlier for my boss,
but it's your jump start.
The point is to show you that automation,
like using the YouTube data API, is one of the main reasons
to use Apps Script.
By the way, if the code was too hard to see,
it's also in the Google Sheet that you can copy.
The link is also in the description
below if you're on mobile.
Speaking of which, did you know that you
can run your scripts from anywhere using Apps Script's
execution API?
What else can you do with Apps Script?
Well, check out the Docs which include various quick starts
to get you going.
Want to know more about the YouTube data API?
Well, its Docs will let you know what parameters to pass in
and what to expect from API calls.
If you can't get enough, the link at the bottom
points you to more of these and other Google Developer videos.
Hope we've shown you what a great tool Apps
Script is for automating laborious tasks-- in this case,
getting information on a bunch of videos.
Want to learn more?
In addition to the Docs, stay tuned.
In a few seconds, we'll link you to other Apps Script episodes
so you can see what else you can do with it.
MALE SPEAKER: Hey, Wesley.
Put these on.
We're going somewhere fancy.
WES CHUN: This is Wesley Chun, and I'll
see you the next time on "The Launch Pad Online."