I thought this was a neat trick.

This is an inline Google Doc Spreadsheet. It’s displayed with an iFrame. Nothing exciting, but it allows for editing by the client (assuming you give them the ability to edit the spreadsheet online). And is automatically updated. So, instead of doing the Textile table formatting (which looks fine, but is uneditable by anyone who’s not an Admin), this allows for possibly more interactive collaboration.

Here’s the code I used in the Basecamp Message:

That is a great idea, thanks Andrew.

Very sweet idea. I hadn’t even thought of doing something like that. Would certainly help with some of the basic spreadsheets that I’ve tried to put in my internal projects for quick data tracking.

My only question since I haven’t used Google Docs yet, is does the other user need to have a Google account, or is there a way to make ANY user active for edits? Thank you.

It would be helpful if the other user(s) had Google accounts, but I suppose you could set up a Googe account for that project only, or, rather, for that client. That way, there is a shared log in.

I did a similar arrangement with Google Calendar.

Works great.

Set it up dedicated calendars and posted the iFrame and link, to project overview via the settings menu,. Via the iCal link, milestones get posted to the calendar. The calendar events are clickable right on the BC overview page.

Just wish we could have calendaring on a tab.

Bob.

Good to know, Andrew. Thank you.

And great tip on the Google Calendar, RobertM.

I love this idea Andrew! I pasted in the iframe code you provided as well as the URL for my Google spreadsheet. I see the frame of where the sheet should be but no data is populated in the frame. Any advice for a non-coder? Many thanks!

I second Ron’s request!

This is an awesome advance. I would really, REALLY love to have a google calendar on my overview page or a doc, but sadly have no programing skills. Can anybody simplify (spell out for us dummies) the process we need to go through to make this happen!

I get the whole page from Google showing in the frame – any ideas how I can fix this?

Sorry, I left out one step.

You need to click the Publish tab in the upper right hand corner of your Google Spreadsheet. This will give you a URL that you then use in in the iFrame code.

Tate, I’ve also done this with Google Calendar a long while back. I will search the old Basecamp forums to find the example. Please hold.

Here’s the link:

http://basecamphq.com/forum-archive/viewtopic.php?id=1937

Thanks so much Andrew. After a little fooling around this worked great. I also finally caught what you were saying in the first part of this thread (I didn’t realize you could put code in the body of an actual message) and that is cool as well! I really appreciate these tips.

Hey Andrew – been playing around with this, but the one big issue is having to publish spreadsheets so search engines can crawl them. Do you have any ideas as to how to use a Google Spreadsheet, Zoho, or an alternative where only select people on Basecamp can see it and edit it?

Can anyone name a browser that supports basecamp, but not iframes?

i think that browser is IE, not sure what version…
Anybody has a better idea where the iframes work inside basecamp and where they doesn’t?

ok wow. just added my calendar as well. this is awesome. I love this (somewhat unsupported) integration with google services.

truth be told, one of the reasons I took an extra year to sign up for basecamp was because I was using google for everyting. If this integration was supported and advertised more I woulda been a paying member way sooner

Well, welcome to the fold, and you’ll start figuring things out as well.

Is there any way to make the Iframe bigger(higher). The few rows visible makes it unusefull for me. Thanks in advance.

Sry figured it out myself just added a height parameter to the code

I’ve been doing this with Zoho Documents and Sheets. Though I am able to edit the document directly in the iFrame, the edits do not show up in the underlying object (and there is no “save” button). I can edit by clicking on the Zoho logo, which opens a tab with the document.

Are people saying that you can edit and save Google docs directly in the iFrame? Anyone else using Zoho with Basecamp?