ImportFromWeb Automations is a powerful system included in Business and Enterprise plans that unlocks advanced data extraction capabilities — beyond the classic =IMPORTFROMWEB() formula.
With ImportFromWeb Automations, you can schedule, automate, and scale your web scraping directly from Google Sheets — no code, no hassle.
🚀 What Is Automations?
Automations is a built-in interface in ImportFromWeb that lets you run web scraping tasks on a reguklar schedule. It’s designed to handle large volumes of pages, automate recurring extractions (hourly, daily, etc.), and store all data for historical tracking.
📌 Note: Automations is only available with our Business and Enterprise plans.
Here are the key benefits:
New Architecture: ImportFromWeb Automations replace formulas by scraping data on the ImportFromWeb backend and storing it in Google BigQuery. This removes the limitations of the formula-based version, such as slow processing and constant reloading.
Automated Workflows: Automations can be scheduled (hourly, daily, weekly), enabling a fully automated reporting pipeline.
Historical Data: All past scan results are stored in BigQuery, making historical analysis possible through pivot tables—for example, tracking price changes over time.
Centralized Data Source: A single automation can collect all required data points (prices, availability, images), powering multiple reports from one reliable, centralized source.
🔓 How to Access It
- In your Google Sheet, go to the top menu bar
- Click: Extensions → ImportFromWeb → ImportFromWeb Automations
- The Automations window will open inside your spreadsheet
From there, you can create scraping tasks, schedule them, and start leveraging the full power of large-scale, automated web scraping.
💡 Why Use the Automations?
Compared to the formula-based version, the Automations offers:
- Stable Data: Extracted values remain fixed – no more formulas constantly reloading (“Loading…”)
- Faster Scraping: Google Sheets can only process ~20 formulas at a time, whereas Automations runs on our backend, making extraction much faster
- Scalability: Handle thousands of pages in one go, without slowing down your sheet
- Fully automated: Automate data refreshes with hourly, daily, or custom frequencies
- Historical Data Storage: Every extracted value is stored in Google Big Query, allowing you to build historical views and trend analysis
- Email Reports: Send the latest scraped data to your team — on autopilot
- Smart Alerts: Get notified on task completion or when data changes