Call APIs from a formula

Peter Spung

Alternate title: Make the most requested calls to an (ideally every) API available as formulas.

Often in the community, someone will ask how to do something in a formula. Often, the response is, "You can do that in the API.", or "Just use the API". Here is one of many examples: "How do I look up last week's value of a cell?" https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/75191/last-weeks-value

I responded with this question, and the following explanation. Which I realize is a new idea for a product feature request... "How does one use the API from a formula?"

Or asked another way... The API is a heavy lift for most of us. We have to get approval to use a language coding platform that our org supports, be granted API access to sheets, then have test tools to debug, then learn an additional language (we already learned the formula language), etc. We already have in Smartsheet the approved authority to use formulas, and know how to use them. And, we want the result of an API call to end up back in a Smartsheet cell, not in the variable/memory space of the coding language environment. Just like this question to the community -- "I want to lookup a prior value of a cell in this or another sheet, on this date (or formula), and return the result in this cell where the formula is located". ...Why not make every API function available in a formula?... Once decided, that's indeed a heavy lift for the dev team at Smartsheet. This could be done in phases -- starting with the most requested functions, or most used APIs (the API dev or product mgt team at Smartsheet undoubtedly tracks API use in its website logs. If not, please start).

No offense intended -- I observe this answer quite often in the Community -- "Just use the API". Doing so should be made a lot simpler, and a lot more accessible. 

Thanks for providing this idea forum, and for listening. Peter Spung | pspung@northcarolina.edu