What is Flat & Zoho Spreadsheet Editor & how to enable it? - LabCollector

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What is Flat & Zoho Spreadsheet Editor & how to enable it?

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SUMMARY:

Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), provides you with various spreadsheets for creating graphs:

1. Flat spreadsheet (Simple)

2. Zoho spreadsheet (more like Excel)

1. Flat spreadsheet

  • It is enabled already.
  • Generally you can find it under the content inside a ELN page or subpage.
  • You can check the shortcuts guide and supported formulas to see how to use Flat spreadsheet.
  • Please read our KB to see how to use formulas in flat spreadsheet.
  • Please read our KB to know more about how to create graph in flat Spreadsheet.
  • The Flat spreadsheet will look like below image.
    *Below image is an example with prefilled values in the cells to show an example.

2. Zoho spreadsheet

  • To use the Zoho Spreadsheet you have to comply with the Zoho terms of service and privacy.
  • Zoho Spreadsheet has a free mode that allows using this tool with 50 user documents session per month (only one user account can be linked to your LabCollector ELN).
  • To know more about Zoho pricing check here.
  • If you are using LabCollector ELN from a domain accessible to the internet (cloud-hosted or other), Zoho Docs is just used to display the information but no data is saved on the Zoho platform, all your spreadsheet data is saved locally on your LabCollector ELN server.
  • In this case, you just need the API keydo not fill the token field.
  • If you are using LabCollector ELN from a local server not accessible by internet (you need at least outbound internet access), the file will first be saved in Zoho Docs and then on the LabCollector database.
  • Once, the spreadsheet is saved on the LabCollector database it is automatically erased from Zoho Docs.
  • To enable Zoho Spreadsheet:
    1. Go to ADMIN -> Manage -> Viewer & Editors
    2. You will see the below page:
    3. Select Zoho Sheet API and create an account at Zoho using the following link https://officeapi.zoho.com.
      NOTE: For European users, be careful to not be automatically redirected to zoho.eu. ONLY USE THIS LINK ABOVE.
    4. Once your account is created, copy, and paste the API key. If your ELN is hosted on a cloud server or a server reachable by internet skip step 5.


NOTE: On this page, you can also follow your API Calls.

    1. If you are on a local instance, you also need to generate a token. Click on “get/refresh token”. A window will open, enter your Zoho login/ password, and press Generate token. The token will be entered on the main page under “Token generated with Zoho”
    2. Click on save to validate your settings.
    3. Once save you Zoho spreadsheet will look like below.
      *Below image is an example with prefilled values in the cells to show an example.

 

Note
If you are a user of Mozilla Firefox and you are having trouble saving your progress while using Zoho Spreadsheet, it may be because you have disabled cookies.

Below, is a screenshot of when the cookies are blocked by Firefox:

To enable them and fix the issue of not being able to save your progress, follow the steps below:
  1. Open your Firefox browser.
  2. Click on the “More” icon (☰) located in the top-right corner.
  3. Select Privacy & Security from the left panel of options.
  4. Select Custom.
  5. Uncheck the Cookies option to prevent Firefox from blocking them.
By enabling cookies in Firefox, you should now be able to use applications that require them, such as Zoho, and save your data and progress without any issues (as shown in the screenshot below).
If you continue to experience problems saving your progress, you may want to check if there are any other settings in your browser or security software that could be blocking cookies.

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