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Google Sheets

Connect your Google account to give assistants access to your spreadsheets. Once connected, assistants can find spreadsheets in your Drive, create new ones, read cell values, and write or append rows — all without leaving a chat.

Google Sheets is a per-member connection: each workspace member connects their own Google account independently. Workspace admins enable the feature; members authorize their own OAuth grants.

Before You Start​

You'll need:

  1. The Google Sheets feature enabled on your workspace. If you don't see Google Sheets in the App Connections directory, ask your Gravity Rail administrator to turn on the Google Sheets feature.
  2. A Google account with access to the spreadsheets you want assistants to use. You can connect multiple Google accounts if you work across several Google organizations.
  3. Appropriate permissions on the spreadsheets — assistants can only read or write sheets the connected Google account can already access.
  4. If the account is on Google Workspace (for example you@radiusclinic.com), a domain admin must allow Gravity Rail first. Personal @gmail.com accounts do not need this. See Google Workspace Accounts.

Connecting Your Google Account​

  1. Go to App Connections and open the Directory tab.
  2. Find Google Sheets (Google category) and click Install.
  3. Click Connect — you'll be redirected to Google's authorization page.
  4. Sign in with the Google account whose spreadsheets you want to share with assistants.
  5. Review and approve the requested permissions (see Required Permissions below).
  6. You'll be redirected back to your workspace. The new connection appears on the Active tab under Platform Integrations.

Connecting Multiple Google Accounts​

If you have spreadsheets in more than one Google organization, you can connect additional accounts:

  1. On the Active tab, open the Google Sheets connection.
  2. Click Add account and repeat the OAuth flow with the second account.
  3. Assistants see all connected accounts when listing available connections.

Connecting During a Chat​

If the workspace has inline connect enabled and you don't yet have a Google Sheets connection, an assistant may prompt you to connect directly within the chat. Click the Connect Google Sheets button in the chat to launch the OAuth flow without leaving the conversation.

Required Permissions​

Gravity Rail requests the following Google OAuth scopes when you connect:

ScopeWhy it's needed
spreadsheets (read/write)Create spreadsheets, read cell values, and write or append rows
drive.readonlyFind spreadsheets by name or content — the Sheets API has no search endpoint, so Drive's file-listing API is used instead
userinfo.email, userinfo.profile, openidIdentify which Google account is connected

Read-only access is still available. If your workspace's assistant configuration limits Google Sheets to read-only mode, assistants will not be able to write or append rows, even though the scope was requested during OAuth. The scope is requested upfront so you only need to authorize once, even if write access is added later.

What Assistants Can Do​

Once your Google account is connected, assistants with the Google Sheets ability can use the following tools:

ToolWhat it does
List connectionsShow which Google accounts you have connected
Find spreadsheetsSearch your Drive for spreadsheets by name or content
Read sheet valuesRead a range of cells from a spreadsheet (defaults to the first sheet if no range is specified)
Create spreadsheetCreate a new spreadsheet, optionally with starter rows (read-write access mode only)
Write sheet valuesAppend new rows or overwrite a specific range
Reconnect accountRe-authorize a connected account if the token has expired

Example Prompts​

  • "Create a spreadsheet called demo data with five made-up cartoon character names and descriptions."
  • "Find the Q3 budget spreadsheet and show me the totals in column D."
  • "Add a new row to the Patient Intake Log with today's date and the name provided."
  • "List all the spreadsheets I have in my Google Drive."

Managing Your Connection​

Viewing Connected Accounts​

Go to App Connections → Active tab and open Google Sheets. Each row shows the connected Google email address and connection status.

Reconnecting an Expired Account​

If your OAuth token expires or is revoked by Google, the connection shows a Reauthorize Required badge:

  1. Open the Google Sheets connection on the Active tab.
  2. Click Reauthorize next to the affected account.
  3. Complete the Google OAuth flow again.

Alternatively, ask an assistant to reconnect: "Reconnect my Google Sheets account." The assistant will return a link you can click to re-run the OAuth flow inline.

Removing an Account​

To disconnect a single Google account:

  1. Open the Google Sheets connection on the Active tab.
  2. Click the action menu next to the account you want to remove.
  3. Choose Disconnect.

To remove the integration entirely, choose Delete from the connection's action menu. This removes all connected Google accounts and their stored tokens.

Also revoke from Google. Removing the connection in Gravity Rail deletes our copy of the OAuth token, but Google keeps its own record of the grant. To fully revoke access, visit myaccount.google.com/permissions and remove the Gravity Rail app.

Troubleshooting​

"This app is blocked" or admin_policy_enforced​

The Google account is on a Workspace domain that blocks unverified third-party apps. This is the usual reason a personal Gmail account connects and a company account (@radiusclinic.com, @yourhospital.org) does not. Send Google Workspace Accounts to your Google Workspace admin and retry after they mark the Sheets client as Trusted.

Sign-in with Google can still work on the same domain. Sign-in only asks who you are; Sheets asks to read and write spreadsheets.

"Reauthorize Required" badge​

Google has revoked or expired the access token. This happens when:

  • The token hasn't been used for six months (Google's inactivity policy)
  • You changed your Google account password
  • You manually revoked access in Google's account settings
  • An admin in your Google organization restricted third-party app access

Open the connection and click Reauthorize to re-run OAuth.

Assistant can't find a spreadsheet​

  • Confirm the spreadsheet is accessible to the Google account you connected — assistants can only see files the account can already open.
  • Try a more specific name or phrase in your prompt.
  • If the spreadsheet was shared with you recently, it may take a minute for Drive's index to update.

Assistant says it doesn't have permission to write​

  • Check that the connected Google account has Editor (not just Viewer) access to the spreadsheet.
  • Verify the workspace's Google Sheets ability is configured for read_write access mode, not read only.

"Google Sheets not available" or missing from the Directory​

The Google Sheets feature is not enabled on your workspace. Ask your Gravity Rail administrator to enable it.

Write lands in the wrong range​

When writing to a sheet, include the target range in your prompt (for example, "append to Sheet2!A:D"). Without a range, the assistant writes to the first sheet starting at the next empty row.