How to automate spreadsheet updates with Scheduled Tasks

If you’ve ever wondered how to update a spreadsheet without constantly clicking “run” or re-importing data, you’re not alone.

Most spreadsheets, especially ones connected to APIs, databases, or software tools, go stale the moment you stop actively maintaining them. Dashboards look great when you build them, but quickly become outdated unless someone is manually refreshing data and rerunning calculations.

So what if your spreadsheet could update itself?

With Scheduled Tasks in Quadratic, you can automate spreadsheet updates so your data, analyses, and charts stay current, without any manual work.

What does it mean to automate spreadsheet updates?

When you automate spreadsheet updates, you’re allowing your spreadsheet to run on a schedule:

• Pull fresh data from external sources
• Recompute formulas, models, and transformations
• Update charts and summaries automatically

Quadratic is built to first update the underlying data source, then refresh any downstream workflow items. That means if you built a dashboard based on Mixpanel data, for example, new data would be synced before any analyses and visualizations are updated.

Example: Building an auto-updating portfolio dashboard with AI

In this demo, the goal was to build a dashboard that:

• Pulls live data from an external API
• Structures it into readable tables
• Calculates a derived metric over time
• Updates automatically every hour

Step 1: Ask AI to pull live data from an API

The first step was asking Quadratic’s AI assistant to fetch external data:

“Show me Bitcoin and Ethereum prices from the CoinGecko API every minute for the past day in two separate tables, with times in PST.”

Quadratic:

• Generated Python code to call the live API
• Pulled minute-by-minute data
• Displayed it in two structured tables
• Applied timestamps in Pacific Time

The result was live, time-series data directly inside the spreadsheet. Getting live data connected to the sheet is the foundation for any auto-updating spreadsheet workflow.

Step 2: Clean and format the spreadsheet

Next, the tables were cleaned up:

• Sorted by time
• Price columns formatted as dollars

We want our data to look good and be easily readable.

Step 3: Create a chart from the data

Then, the AI was asked:

“Create a chart showing my portfolio value over time based on my Holdings.”

Quadratic:

• Joined the holdings table with the amount of BTC and ETH I own
• Calculated portfolio value at every timestamp
• Built a chart showing how the value changed over time

Now we have some actually insightful information in our sheet. And because Quadratic references the underlying data source instead of just ranges, the chart is set up to refresh anytime that data changes.

Step 4: Make the spreadsheet update automatically

At this point, the spreadsheet worked - we can see how the net value of our portfolio has fluctuated over time - but it still required manual refresh to get new insights.

This is where Scheduled Tasks come in. A scheduled task was created to:

• Run the entire file
• Execute every hour on the hour

Quadratic’s cloud handles the execution automatically. Even when the app is closed:

• New data is pulled from the API
• Tables refresh
• Calculations recompute
• The chart updates on its own

This is how you update a spreadsheet automatically without touching it.

The result: A living, auto-updating spreadsheet

Once the schedule is in place, the spreadsheet keeps itself current. New data is pulled in on every run, calculations are recomputed, and charts reflect the latest values automatically. There’s nothing special you need to maintain; the file runs the same way it always has, just on a schedule instead of by hand.

This is especially useful for dashboards and reports you rely on regularly. You can open the sheet at any point and know the numbers reflect the most recent run, without having to check whether anything needs to be refreshed.

When scheduled tasks make sense

Scheduled Tasks are a good fit any time your spreadsheet depends on data that changes outside the file itself. That might be API calls, database queries, or metrics pulled from other tools. If you’ve built a spreadsheet that’s accurate when you run it but quickly goes stale, scheduling removes that manual step entirely.

You can also be selective about what runs. In some cases, rerunning a small section of the file is enough to keep everything downstream up to date, which keeps schedules efficient and predictable.

Get started

Scheduled Tasks are available now in Quadratic. If you already have a spreadsheet that pulls external data or runs code, you can add a schedule in a few clicks and let it handle updates going forward. It’s a straightforward way to keep your work current without adding another thing to remember.