Selecting a sequence of sheets in Google Docs / Spreadsheets

Question

I have a Google spreadsheet where each sheet is a student group, say, Group1, Group2, Group3 etc. Each sheet is organized identically.

I would like to summarize some information from all sheets into a final one. Since cell A1 of each sheet has the student group name, I'd like to code something like:

**Group name**  
=Group1!A1  
=Group2!A1  
=Group3!A1  
...

Is it possible to code/script this with Google Docs? I have the impression that yes it is, but I cannot find the way to code it (being pretty useless with spreadsheets, all apologies).

Answer 1

Update based on OP's feedback

What might help you then is =INDIRECT

For example: =INDIRECT("Sheet" & ROW() & "!A1")

What this formula does is uses the current sheet's own row to help define what information is being pulled. In this case, starting with cell A1, the formula will be evaluated as =INDIRECT("Sheet1!A1")

What =INDIRECT does is allows you to use text strings to define reference ranges when pulling data, thus you can use & to concatenate a string and insert an automated way of iterating through the various sheet numbers. To get the summarized data in A1 of all sheets, just drag the formula in the summary sheet all the way down the column to have the formula auto-fill each of the following roles. Here's a screenshot:

What's happening in my example is that on Sheet1 I have "Status" in cell A1. Looking at my formula in columnC, you'll notice that =INDIRECT is pulling that value from A1. The following entries is from autofilling (click and drag) the formula down to other rows, making =INDIRECT concatenate different Sheet #s based on the row().

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OLD ANSWER Which does not use =INDIRECT

Without knowing more about the format of your specific Groups' sheets, you have it almost correct in your example.

If you rename sheets in your document to a custom name, you need to reference them using quotes. If you add single quotes around the sheet name, you've got it:

Group name  

='Group1'!A1  
='Group2'!A1  
='Group3'!A1  
...

You can also add summary information in a sheet, like:

Groups Total Sum

=sum('Group1'!B1:B13)

That will give you the sum of values in Sheet Group1, column B, rows 1 - 13.

Note: if you're ever confused as to how to reference a value from another sheet, you can always just:

• Go to the summary sheet
• Select the cell you'd like to edit
• Hit = to start a formula and then
• Click to another sheet/cell and see how the formula bar autofills the information.