{"id":3878,"date":"2025-05-21T15:42:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T19:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:42:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T19:42:54","slug":"revisiting-and-refining-a-google-apps-script-with-the-help-of-generative-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/?p=3878","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting and Refining a Google Apps Script with the help of Generative AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A few years ago (6 years ago!), I shared about <a href=\"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/2019\/01\/13\/using-google-apps-script-with-user-input-to-automate-repetitive-tasks-in-google-docs\/\">a solution<\/a> I came up with to create the weekly &#8220;talking points&#8221; Google documents that my team relies on. We&#8217;ve been using that same solution with Google Apps Script ever since. It&#8217;s been rock solid, and saves us a lot of time from creating each one of these documents by hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I decided it was time to refresh this script and document, since we now have a third venue (at a new campus). And, when it&#8217;s time to refine &#8211; why not consult some AI in the process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-12.52.53e280afpm.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3974\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">This was my starting prompt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I started by sending ChatGPT my existing script and asking if it had any ideas to improve the prompts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-12.53.11e280afpm.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3975\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The response<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We immediately got to work redesigning the script &#8211; mostly focusing on the dialogs and flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-3.07.11e280afpm.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3977\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I came up with a basic new design that featured the church logo and a simpler header. ##VENUE## and ##DATE## are placeholders that get replaced with the actual Venue name and Date of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After some back and forth, here&#8217;s what the new dialog looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-12.48.48e280afpm.png?w=832\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3979\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.2344359616677167;width:472px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>This looks a lot better! I even added a progress bar:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-12.29.33e280afpm.png?w=844\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3980\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2.573099415204678;width:404px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/techministryblog.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/screenshot-2025-05-21-at-12.53.57e280afpm.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3981\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re hesitating to jump in using generative AI &#8211; give it a whirl! It can save you a lot of time and propose ideas you may not have thought about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to see my script, you can check it out here: <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/josephdadams\/document-generator-gas\">https:\/\/github.com\/josephdadams\/document-generator-gas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago (6 years ago!), I shared about a solution I came up with to create the weekly &#8220;talking points&#8221; Google documents that my team relies on. We&#8217;ve been using that same solution with Google Apps Script ever since. It&#8217;s been rock solid, and saves us a lot of time from creating each &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/?p=3878\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Revisiting and Refining a Google Apps Script with the help of Generative AI&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,16,17,26,38,50,51],"class_list":["post-3878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ai","tag-chatgpt","tag-church","tag-google-apps-script","tag-ministry","tag-production","tag-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techministry.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}