Google Apps Script

Google Apps Script is a scripting language for light-weight application development in the Google Apps platform. It is based on JavaScript 1.6 with some portions of 1.7 and 1.8 and provides subset of ECMAScript 5 API, however instead of running on the client, it gets executed in the Google Cloud.

According to Google, Google Apps Script "provides easy ways to automate tasks across Google products and third party services." Apps Script is also the tool that powers the add-ons for Google Docs, Sheets & Forms.

Benefits

 * Based on JavaScript, easy to learn.


 * Cloud based debugger for debugging App Scripts in the web browser.


 * It can be used to create simple tools for an organization's internal consumption.


 * It can be used to perform simple system administration tasks.


 * Community-based support model.

Limitations

 * Processing limitations: as a cloud-based service, Google Apps Script limits the time that a user's script may run, as well as limiting access to Google services.


 * Currently Google Apps Store does not allow direct connection to internal (behind-the-firewall) corporate databases, which is key to building business apps, however, via use of the JDBC service, this can be overcome, if connections are allowed from Google servers to the internal database server. Similarly, lack of other connectivity, such as LDAP connectivity, limits the level to which GAS can be used in the enterprise.


 * Due to the cloud nature of Google Apps script, functions related to date and time will produce results that seems to be incorrect due to the data changing timezones. Using Date/Time objects and functions without very precise declaration and thorough testing may result in inaccurate results.