Docs: Tiller Community Solutions Add-on

The data loss warning is informing you that the solution is being replaced; the script is not (currently) designed to do anything to preserve any user-input cells or user modifications to the sheet. You are correct that, other than period settings, there is really no user-input data in the Yearly or Monthly Budget. This minimal impact to user-data is true for most solutions excepting the Accounts and Debts sheets (which can be updated).

As for performance issues, if you install all of the solutions, you have a lot of formulas always running against all of your transactions and balance history. If those two sheets contain a lot of rows, I imagine you might see some unresponsiveness in Google Sheets.

Best,
Randy

Hi folks - am trying to get the “add a txn manually” feature of the add-on to work. I added the Metadata column as prompted, but now when I click “add a txn” – it doesn’t do anything. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot?

Hey @epeter,

You’ve found a very new feature that we haven’t announced yet. My guess is that the scripts are encountering unexpected compatibility issues with your sheet when rendering the add-transaction sidebar pane. I’ll check out the crash logs and see if I can figure out what is going on.

More soon…
Randy

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I tracked down the bug in the Add Transaction workflow. I’ve published a fix which should be live in an hour or two.

Be sure to reload the spreadsheet tab in order to get the newest version of the add-on.

Thanks for reporting this issue, @epeter.
Randy

@randy @epeter OK, I just refreshed my memory as to how to get to “add a transaction manually”. I have been adding transactions forever and have never used this before. I just go to the transactions tab and add/insert a row(s). It appears the only difference in using the sidebar tool is an option to flag for reconciliation…whatever that means. Am I right? And, how does flag for reconciliation work? Thanks, Blake

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@Blake,

Good questions… The add-transaction workflow is designed to simplify pulling in a number of fields (e.g. all the account fields) during transaction creation… but also to prime the transaction for reconciliation when a Tiller-feeds transaction arrives later.

This workflow is great for a situation like paying by check… You want to record a liability that won’t show up in your transaction log until the recipient cashes it. The Add Transaction workflow lets you record the check as you write it. When the recipient later cashes it, the Reconcile Wizard is built to find matches for outstanding manual transactions and then merge the records.

We had a simpler version of this functionality built into the Simple Business tools, but this new version is refreshed and more capable.

I’m hoping to put up some documentation next week.

Cheers,
Randy

OK, I just found this explanation. I am never posting a transaction early that will auto-post later based on the way I operate. As explained in the article, it does serve a purpose in the right situations. Blake

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@randy,

I understand. However, regarding your paying by check example, I do not believe the system is recording a liability as you say. Rather, the system is decreasing an asset (the user selects the account at the bottom of the sidebar workflow). In essence, the user is recording the expense and reduction of the asset earlier than the system would eventually do automatically. Once the automatic entry comes in, the wizard matches things up and reverses the manual entry and lets the automatic entry stand. There is no liability involved based on the way I understand the system works. Sorry, but this is the accountant inside of me that is speaking and I usually cannot get him to shut up. Thanks, Blake

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Update - At this point, I have migrated all four of my legacy sheets over to the foundation template. I did the biggest sheet first, the two smaller ones later, and the fourth sheet was a new sheet for me that I started as a foundation template from day one. I did it all manually which I think is easier for me, no migration helper tools or anything like that. Blake

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I appreciate the accountant-speak correction, @blake. I will try to use your terminology when I write the new features up in the next week or so. Thanks!
Randy

Sounds like you’re on a solid footing. Hoping it all performs well for you, @blake.

Is there any way to get to these sample templates without granting the Tiller add-on blanket access to all of my Drive spreadsheets? Full read/write access to all of my personal Google spreadsheets (which is what that first scope sure sounds like…) feels way too broad. Thank you. @randy

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@vlanard @randy

Full access is my understanding but Randy will know for sure. Blake

Good question, @vlanard. Unfortunately, the Google v4 API copyTo function we use to add and remove templates from spreadsheets in the Tiller Labs add-on relies on a broad permission. To offer the sheet insertion and management functionality, “full access” via the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets scope is required.

We do not use this broad scope to access YOUR other spreadsheets. Rather, we use it to access OUR master templates and insert them into your active spreadsheet.

We anticipated that some users would be reluctant to grant this scope so we have bifurcated all core subscription services into the Tiller Money Feeds add-on which we strive to shoehorn into the much narrower https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets.currentonly scope.

At this time, we are only able to offer the free & optional Tiller Labs add-on with the broader scope.

Randy

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Thanks for the detailed answer. @randy @Blake
If there’s a future possibility of sharing sample sheets containing Template reports as a workaround for those folks who aren’t ready to grant full read/write scope, i’d be a fan. (Or some other document-limited scope)
Have a good one!

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I hear you, @vlanard. The Google ecosystem is rapidly evolving. I’m hopeful that the scopes become more discrete and that we can leverage the copyTo capability without unnecessarily requesting scopes/access to all of a user’s spreadsheets… or that there are alternative/new methods for us to insert templates without making such broad requests. We will keep an eye on it.

We thought there MIGHT be users who were uncomfortable with the broader Tiller Labs permissions. Confirming this through your feedback (and perhaps other users) recognizes this issue as an opportunity to improve the platform. So, thanks for speaking up!

Randy

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I’d echo the permissions concern. The only reasons I am comfortable using Tiller with Google Sheets is that it limits itself to the current spreadsheet. Requiring full account access to use Tiller Labs is a non-starter for me.

I’m happy to jump through a few hoops to get access to the sheets for various labs features I’d like to try out, if there is a manual-install alternative you could make available.

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There isn’t a manual install option right now and the workaround we’ve recommended to others is to use a separate Google account they don’t care too much about giving more broad permissions to. We certainly aren’t using the permissions to access other sheets or data in your drive, it’s because of the way we “copy” solutions from our master template into customer sheets. There isn’t a way to do that without the use of the V4 API from Google and that’s what requires such broad permissions. Thanks for the feedback though.

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There are ways to accomplish the same experience that would not require such broad scopes. The broad scopes are a side-effect of our chosen implementation.

I would think we could make these sheets available to be manually copied fairly easily, though?

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You are right. We chose to do it this way because it’s way less complex/code intensive - we’re using an existing framework here vs trying re-invent the wheel. So once again, another chapter in our tradeoffs saga :slight_smile:

We’re trading reduction of add-on scopes for being able to rapidly release templates.

We experimented with how to insert the sheets not using the “Copy to” method, but weighed the dev complexity/overhead/maintenance/upgrade cost against the permissions and decided to just stick with the “copy to” approach for now knowing that some customers wouldn’t be happy about the permissions, but assuming many wouldn’t actually care or at least not care enough to research the implications of the specific permissions we’re asking for when they click that “allow” button as part of the add-on install.

The manual copy option is possible, yes. But it’s more manual management on the customer’s part to A) figure out whether or not the sheet is out of date (we’ve released a fix or upgrade) and they need to manually update it (copy in the latest version - which requires them to bookmark or otherwise search for where to find the master again) B) possibly “restore” multiple sheets if one that they’re “manually” upgrading is “upstream” of others that are “downstream” and have dependencies - we haven’t quite solved this UX in Labs, but the restore feature makes it quick and easy.

It is possible, but it’s kind of a headache and IMHO not a great user experience as compared to what we’ve built with the solution management here in Labs.

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