How to Create a Weekly Report in Google Sheets with ChatGPT

Manually compiling weekly reports is a familiar grind. It often involves downloading multiple CSVs, wrestling with formatting in Google Sheets, and spending hours just getting the data into a presentable state - before you’ve even had a chance to analyze it. This article will show you how to use ChatGPT directly within Google Sheets to automate the summary and analysis portions of your weekly reporting, turning hours of tedious work into a process that takes minutes.

Why Automate a Weekly Report in Google Sheets?

Before jumping into the how-to, let's cover the "why." You might have a system that works, but "works" doesn't mean it's efficient. Manually updating a spreadsheet every week is a classic time sink that keeps you buried in low-value tasks instead of focusing on what the data actually means.

• Reclaim Your Time: Imagine your Monday morning without the mandatory 90 minutes of downloading data, copying it over, and building pivot tables. Automation hands you back that time. Instead of wrangling data from last week, you can start the new week focused on strategy.

• Reduce Human Error: Every copy-and-paste action is an opportunity for error. A slipped mouse, a wrong cell reference, a mistyped number - these tiny mistakes can derail an entire report and lead to poor decisions. Automating the analysis and summary process ensures consistency and accuracy.

• Focus on Insights, Not Inputs: The purpose of reporting isn't just to look at numbers, it's to find insights and take action. When you're bogged down in the manual process of building the report, you have less mental energy left to think critically about the results. Automating the grunt work frees you up to do the more important job: understanding performance and planning next steps.

By connecting ChatGPT to Google Sheets, you can delegate the task of summarizing performance, identifying trends, and even writing narrative updates to an AI, allowing you to operate more like a strategist and less like a data entry clerk.

What You'll Need to Begin

Getting this automated reporting system up and running requires just a few things. Here’s a quick checklist of the components you'll need before you start building.

• A Google Account: This is a given for using Google Sheets.

• An OpenAI Account: You'll need API access to connect ChatGPT's brain to your spreadsheet. You can create an account on the OpenAI website. Note that using the API is not free, but it's incredibly cost-effective for tasks like this - often just a few cents per report.

• The "GPT for Sheets and Docs" Add-on: This is the bridge that connects Google Sheets to your OpenAI account, empowering your spreadsheet with AI capabilities.

• Your Raw Data: Have a sample of the data you want to report on, ideally in a CSV format. This could be an export from Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Shopify, your CRM, or any other platform you use.

Step-by-Step: Building Your Weekly Report with Google Sheets & ChatGPT

With those aforementioned pieces ready, let's walk through the process of building the report from scratch. We'll use a hypothetical marketing campaign export with columns like Campaign, Spend, Clicks, and Conversions.

Step 1: Set Up Your Google Sheet Template

Organization is key to a sustainable process. A cluttered sheet will only add confusion.

1. Create a new Google Sheet. Give it a clear name, like "Weekly Marketing Report Template."

2. Create two tabs at the bottom. Name the first tab "Raw Data" and the second tab "Weekly Summary."

3. The "Raw Data" tab is where you will paste your exported data each week. This keeps the source information separate and untouched. The "Weekly Summary" tab is where we'll build our clean, auto-updating dashboard.

Step 2: Install and Configure the GPT for Sheets Add-on

Now, let's give your spreadsheet its new AI superpower. This is the one-time setup that enables all the functionality to follow.

1. In Google Sheets, navigate to Extensions > Add-ons > Get add-ons.

2. Search for "GPT for Sheets and Docs" and install it. You may need to grant it a few permissions.

3. Next, you need to link it to your OpenAI account. Go back to Extensions > GPT for Sheets and Docs > Set API Key.

4. Here, you'll paste in your API key from OpenAI. To get a key, log into your OpenAI account, navigate to the "API Keys" section in your account settings, and generate a new secret key.

Important: Treat your API key like a password. Do not share it publicly. Once it's entered, you won't need to do this step again for this sheet.

Step 3: Import Your Weekly Raw Data

For this process to work each week, you have to feed the system your new data. Head over to the "Raw Data" tab you created.

For your first run, simply paste your exported CSV data into this tab. For this example, let's assume your data looks something like this in columns A through D:

Step 4: Use ChatGPT Formulas to Summarize and Analyze

This is where the magic happens. Navigate to your "Weekly Summary" tab. Instead of using complex VLOOKUP or QUERY functions, we'll use natural language with the GPT functions that the add-on provides.

Let’s set up a few report components.

Generate a Top-Level Performance Summary

You probably need a quick, readable summary for stakeholders (or yourself). Let's have ChatGPT write one.

In a cell (say, A2), type the following label: "Weekly Narrative Summary." In the cell next to it (B2), enter this formula:

When you press Enter, the formula will send your prompt and the specified data range to ChatGPT. In a few seconds, cell B2 will populate with a clear summary like: "This week, our marketing efforts generated 145 conversions from four campaigns. The top performer was 'Fall Preview - Google Ads,' which drove 60 conversions, demonstrating its effectiveness in our current strategy."

Identify the Best and Worst Performers

Next, let’s extract specific insights. Create a label in cell A4 called "Top Performing Campaign." In B4, use this formula:

It will return: "Fall Preview - Google Ads."

You can do the same for the worst performer. In A5, label it "Campaign to Review," and in B5, use:

This more complex prompt asks the AI to consider two variables, helping you spot inefficiency.

Calculate Key Metrics with Standard Formulas

While ChatGPT is great for analysis and text, you should use standard Google Sheets formulas for simple arithmetic to ensure accuracy. This hybrid approach is the most effective.

• Total Spend: =SUM('Raw Data'!B:B)

• Total Conversions: =SUM('Raw Data'!D:D)

• Average Cost Per Conversion (CPC): =B6/B7 (where B6 is Total Spend and B7 is Total Conversions).

Step 5: Structure and Visualize Your Report Tab

Your "Weekly Summary" tab is now an automated dashboard. Structure it with clear headings and formatting so it’s easy to read at a glance. A good layout might look like this:

Weekly Performance Dashboard

Narrative Summary[Cell containing your =GPT formula for the summary]

Top-Level MetricsTotal Spend: [Cell with =SUM('Raw Data'!B:B)]Total Conversions: [Cell with =SUM('Raw Data'!D:D)]Avg. Cost Per Conversion: [Cell for the division formula]

Campaign InsightsTop Performing Campaign: [Cell with =GPT formula to find the top performer]

Finally, select your key metrics and create a bar or line chart using Google Sheets' built-in charting tools (Insert > Chart). This gives you a quick visual reference for performance trends.

Best Practices for Success

To make this system robust and reliable, keep a few best practices in mind.

• Be Hyper-Specific with Prompts: Vague prompts lead to vague answers. Instead of asking, "Summarize the data," ask, "Identify the top 3 campaigns by total conversions and list them in a bulleted format."

• Keep Data Formats Consistent: Automation thrives on consistency. Ensure the CSV you export each week has the same columns in the same order. If "Campaign Name" becomes "Campaign" next week, your formulas might need updating.

• Trust, But Verify: It’s a good practice to occasionally sanity-check the AI’s output. For critical calculations, it’s often best to rely on standard spreadsheet formulas (SUM, AVERAGE, etc.) and use the GPT functions for qualitative analysis, summaries, and complex pattern recognition.

• Template and Repeat: Once your report is built, the hard work is done. The next week, all you need to do is clear the old information in the "Raw Data" tab and paste in the new week's export. Everything in your "Weekly Summary" tab will update automatically.

Final Thoughts

By connecting Google Sheets to ChatGPT, you can build a semi-automated reporting system that handles the most repetitive parts of your weekly workflow. It lets you skip the tedious data wrangling and move straight to analyzing performance and making informed decisions - the work that actually moves the needle.

While this Google Sheets method is a major step up from manual reporting, we know that integrating add-ons, managing API keys, and dealing with CSV exports can still be a hassle. We created Graphed to solve this exact problem. It offers one-click connections to your marketing and sales platforms (like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Facebook Ads), completely eliminating the need for data exports. Your dashboards are always live and update in real-time, allowing you to ask questions in plain English and get visualized answers in seconds.