GapJump AI Workshop Series

The Shared Sheet Challenge

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 · 2:00 to 3:00 · Open lab until 4:00 · Facilitator: Kevin Brookhouser

What to Bring

Your Receipt Logger flow from July 8, or any Workspace Studio flow that writes to a private sheet
Claude or Gemini open in a tab, and script.google.com ready
Everything you learned in the last two sessions. You already have every piece you need.

Session Objective

Solve a real limitation with no instructions: get data from a Workspace Studio flow into a spreadsheet your whole team can share. You will work it out in small groups, using Claude or Gemini as your guide.

Is This Session for You?

Start Here

This one is built for people who came to the July 8 Workspace Studio session and the Apps Script session, or who are already comfortable using Studio to modify a spreadsheet and using Claude or Gemini to generate code for Apps Script.

If that is you, you have every tool you need. Today is not a tutorial. It is a puzzle, and the point is that you solve it rather than follow along.

The Challenge

Workspace Studio cannot edit a shared sheet.

That is the wall. Studio will happily write to a private spreadsheet you own, but the moment a sheet is shared or lives in a Shared Drive, Studio will not write to it. That makes it useless for anything a team needs to see together.

Your challenge: build a working solution that gets your Studio flow's data into a shared spreadsheet, using what you already know about Studio, Apps Script, and Claude or Gemini.

What "Done" Looks Like

5 min

You have solved it when all of this is true:

A new item hits your Studio flow (a receipt in the folder, for example) with no manual steps from you.
The data lands in a spreadsheet that is shared with at least one other person, and they can see it.
It works again on the next item, without creating duplicate rows.

💡 Stretch goal: could someone else on your team add data to the same shared sheet through their own flow?

How to Work This

Rules

Groups of 2 or 3. Talk it through out loud. Someone else's half-idea is often the missing piece.
Claude or Gemini is your guide, not your answer key. Ask it to think with you before you ask it to hand you code.
Hints are below when you want them, in order. Try to earn each one first. I am also circulating and will give live guidance on request.
Errors are expected. Paste the exact error text or a screenshot into Claude or Gemini and say where it happened.

Sample Prompt: Ask for Coaching, Not Answers

I'm solving a puzzle and I want you to be my guide, not give me the answer. The constraint: Google Workspace Studio can write to a private spreadsheet I own, but it cannot write to a shared spreadsheet. I want that data to end up in a shared team sheet. Ask me questions and give me one nudge at a time instead of the full solution.

Sample Prompt: When You Have a Plan

Here's my plan: [describe your approach in your own words]. Write the Apps Script to do it, tell me exactly which file it goes in, and walk me through setting up whatever makes it run automatically.

Work the Puzzle

35 min

Go. Reveal hints only when your group is genuinely stuck, and only the next one in order.

Hint 1: Reframe the problem

Stop trying to make Studio do the thing it refuses to do. Studio is happy writing to your private sheet. So let it. Now ask a different question: what else in your toolkit can move data from one spreadsheet to another, and run on its own without you?

Hint 2: Pick the right tool for the second half

Apps Script attached to your private sheet can open a completely different spreadsheet by its ID and write rows into it. Sharing rules do not block it the way they block Studio, because the script runs as you. Studio never has to touch the shared sheet at all.

Hint 3: Something has to pull the trigger

A script that only runs when you click Run is not a solution. Look into triggers in the Apps Script editor. Which kind fits here: one that runs on a schedule every few minutes, or one that fires when the private sheet changes? Ask Claude or Gemini to compare the two for this use case.

Hint 4: The trap everyone hits

Once it runs repeatedly, it will copy the same rows over and over and your shared sheet fills with duplicates. Your script needs a way to know what it has already sent. How would you mark a row as synced, or remember where you left off?

💡 If you get it working, do not stop. Break it on purpose and see if you can explain why it broke.

Finished Early?

Bonus

Make It Resilient

What happens if the shared sheet is renamed, moved, or a column is added? Try it and handle it.

Add a Notification

Have the sync tell you it ran, or flag when something failed to copy.

Help Another Group

Explaining your approach out loud is the fastest way to find out whether you actually understand it.

Share Your Solution

12 min

Each group walks the room through what they built. Not just what worked: tell us the wrong turns, the errors, and the moment it clicked. Different groups will have solved this differently, and that is the interesting part.

What was your approach, in one sentence?
What made your script run on its own?
How did you deal with duplicates?
Where did Claude or Gemini help most, and where did it send you sideways?

Debrief and Wrap-Up

5 min

The real takeaway is not the shared sheet. It is that you hit a hard limit in a tool, and instead of stopping, you combined tools and reasoned your way around it with an AI as your guide. That pattern is the whole point of this series.

Homework: find one more place where a tool tells you no, and see whether the same move gets you around it.

Give Feedback

Open Lab

3:00 to 4:00

The session ends at 3:00, but I am sticking around until 4:00 for anyone who wants to keep going. No agenda: finish your solution, chase the bonus challenges, get unstuck on something from a previous session, or start pointing this at a workflow you actually care about.

💡 Entirely optional. Stay for five minutes or the whole hour.