Importing Data from Different Files in Google Sheets:
If you have one or multiple separate files and want to import data from those files into your own spreadsheet, the IMPORTRANGE function can do the job for you.
This function is built with only two parameters: the URL of the file you want to import data from and the range you want to import.
=IMPORTRANGE(spreadsheet_URL, range_string)
For example, let's say your HR department fills data into their file called "DATABASE".
You want to import this information into your own spreadsheet to gather data about various employees.
Google Sheets has a unique URL for each file, which is highlighted in red in the image below.
Open the file from which you want to import data, and write the following formula:
=IMPORTRANGE("https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vdoaY0PwIgMIZhdHz18LflRV_BpmRNnIK9j0KVMlyII/edit#gid=0","Sheet1!A1:F")
Here's an explanation of the formula:
In red brackets is the URL that we copied from the file we want to import data from, as shown in the image above.
In blue brackets is the name of the sheet from which we want to import. If the sheet name consists of multiple words with spaces in between, we write the sheet name in single quotes like this: 'Sheet 1'.
In green brackets is the range to be imported.
Please note that the sheet name is defined by an exclamation mark, in our case 'Sheet1', and then followed by the range A1:F.
The F without specifying row number, allowing us to get an infinite range of rows.
Immediately after writing the formula and pressing Enter, you may receive a REF# error message. Hover your mouse over the error message and approve access permissions.
With the approval, you will get the selected range from the second file.
Now you can search in your new data source as you would with any other dataset. You can import data from multiple files and even manipulate the imported dataset in different ways using curly brackets or the powerful QUERY function.
Good luck!
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