Live Sync: User guide
With Power Sync you can sync your Podio app to a Google Sheet. This opens the door to a lot of new possibilities to build dynamic reports, graphs and pivot tables on top of your Podio data. It also allows you to connect your Podio to the powerful features of Google Datastudio.
1. Create new sync
Click on the Power Sync icon and click on Add new sync to get started.
2. Select the fields that you want to sync
First select the fields that you want to sync. By default we will select all the fields that are displayed in your view. The drop-down will show all fields of your app.
Underneath your app fields, the drop-down also lists Podio’s own item data, so you can sync Created on without adding a field to the app template. [[pad: confirm which metadata columns the drop-down offers, for example Created on, Created by, App item ID]]
3. Enter a name for your google sheet
After selecting the columns, you can enter name for your google sheet. The name will make it easier for future use to distinguish it from other power syncs. (It is possible to create more than 1 power sync for the same Podio app.).
If you receive error with 'export_xls_saved_list_id', it means you have not filled in a name for your Power Sync.
4. Start Power Sync
Click on Start Sync to create the google sheet. The progress bar will show the progress of the initial creation and sync. Once the sync is completed, you can click on Go To Sheet to open the google sheet.
We will automatically sync the values from the Podio app approximately every hour to the google sheet. If items are deleted from the app, then these rows will be deleted in the sheet approximately every 4 hours.
5. Active Power Syncs
Once you have created a Power Sync, new section will appear in the toolbox with your Active Power Syncs. This overview allows you to:
- Open the google sheet
- Refresh the sheet manually
- Remove the google sheet (cannot be undone!)
The data in the 'Export' sheet cannot be edited, however it is possible to build reports on top of this main sheet.
6. How the sheet and the sync belong together
The Active Power Syncs list shows the sync definitions saved for this Podio app. It does not look in your Google Drive, so a sheet whose sync definition is no longer there disappears from the list even though the file itself may still exist and open by URL.
Creating the sync again makes a new Google Sheet. The old URL stays where it is and is not reconnected, so any report, dashboard or Data Studio source that points at the old sheet has to be pointed at the new one.
The hourly refresh only starts after the initial export has finished. If the progress bar has not reached 100%, the sheet stays empty however long you wait, so check the progress screen first when a new sync produces nothing.