With the Lucid Cards for Microsoft 365 Excel and Google Sheets integrations, you can visualize information from a dataset more easily in Lucidspark. Read this article to learn how to sync with Excel or Google Sheets and create Lucid Cards attached to your dataset.

While these are two separate integrations, the set up and functionality are very similar. Regardless of which product you use, Lucid Cards will allow you to bidirectionally sync and represent your dataset across Lucid and your product of choice (Microsoft 365 Excel or Google Sheets) to facilitate your team collaboration.

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Install the Google Sheets or Excel integration

The first part of setting up these integrations is to install the applicable app from the Lucid Integration Marketplace.

To install the Google Sheets or Excel integrations, follow these steps:

Go to the Lucid Integration Marketplace.
Search “Lucid Cards for Google Sheets” or “Lucid Microsoft 365 Excel Integration [Beta]”.
Click Connect.

Authenticate the integrations in Lucidspark

Now that the integration is installed in your Lucidspark account, you will now sign in to authenticate the connection between Lucidspark and Google Sheets or Excel.

To authenticate Lucidspark in Google Sheets or Excel, follow these steps:

Click the More tools icon from the Primary Toolbar on the left-side of the canvas.
Select the Google Sheets icon or the Excel icon from the menu that appears.
Click Import rows.
In the window that appears, click Authorize.
Log in with your Google or Microsoft 365 account.
Click Allow.

Tip: Drag the Google Sheets or Excel icon from the “More tools” menu into the Primary Toolbar to pin it to the main portion of the toolbar.

Import rows as Lucid Cards

To import a Google Sheet or Excel dataset and create Lucid Cards from it, follow these steps:

Select the Google Sheets icon or the Excel icon from the Primary Toolbar on the left-hand side of the canvas.
Click Import rows.
From the Google or Microsoft 365 file picker, choose a spreadsheet.
Click Select.
If your file has more than one page, select which sheets you want to import.
Click Next.
After importing your data, follow the prompt to identify the header row of your dataset. Select your header row if you have one.
Click Next.
In the next window, follow the prompt to select a column of your data that contains reference keys for the contents of each row.
- Reference keys allow Lucidchart to keep track of your data even after you make structural changes to it, such as removing, adding, or reordering rows. Select the column that contains unique identifiers if you have one.
Click Next.
In this next window, you can configure your data.
- Select from the dropdown fields from your dataset to assign them to relevant Lucid fields. For example, you can assign a name column as the “Title” or number column as the “Priority”.
Click Save.
In the final window, you can determine which rows you want to import as Lucid Cards.
- Select individual rows or check the top box to select them all.
- Use the toggle at the top of the window to hide previously imported items.
Click Finish.

The selected rows from your Google Sheet or Excel spreadsheet will be imported as Lucid Cards onto your board.

Tip: If you don’t add a header row or reference key upon import, you will not be able to add one in your document later unless you go through the entire import flow again. Once you have configured your Lucid fields to reference keys from your dataset you won’t be able to change those either.

Manage sync settings

You can determine how data is synced between Lucid and Google/Microsoft: manually, automatically one-way from Google/Microsoft to Lucid, or automatically both ways.

To change how your data is synced, follow these steps:

Select the Google Sheets icon or the Excel icon from the Primary Toolbar to the left of the canvas.
Click Settings in the top-right corner of the panel that appears.
Under “Sync settings”, click Two-way sync, Pull changes, or Manual sync.
- This button is different depending on what sync setting is currently selected.
At the bottom of the panel that appears, click Manage sync settings.
Select a sync option:
- Two-way sync: Lucid and Google/Microsoft are automatically synced to each other. Changes in one update the data in the other.
- Pull changes: Lucid updates automatically with changes made in Excel, but changes in Lucid don’t affect items in Google or Microsoft.
- Manual sync: Lucid and Google/Microsoft only update when you manually sync the data.
Click Save.

If you have two-way sync enabled, you can temporarily pause the connection between Google/Microsoft and Lucid by clicking the Pause syncing icon under “Sync settings”. Click the Resume syncing icon when you want Lucid and Google/Microsoft to resume their connection.

Tip: Use the “pause syncing” feature mentioned above to optimize workload planning for your team by preventing updates in Lucid from affecting data in Google or Microsoft until you’ve finalized your plan. For more information, check out our Balance team workload with capacity planning article.

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