Title: External Data Sources
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# External Data Sources

 *  Resolved [TONIK](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tonikpro/)
 * (@tonikpro)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/external-data-sources/)
 * Hi
 * Any plans or advice on using external data sources (for example Google Spreadsheets
   or txt files) to power the charts?
 * Regards
    Jann
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-charts/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-charts/)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [Paul van Zyl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pushplaybang/)
 * (@pushplaybang)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/external-data-sources/#post-3771127)
 * Hi Jann
 * Sure, you wouldn’t be able to do this from the admin section BUT it wouldn’t 
   be too hard to do in your template files.
 * The first step would just be getting your external data, such as from a google
   spreadsheet, or parsing a file, and depending on where its coming from clearly
   you could either work with the API to do so, or use php or javascript (all depending)
   to get and output your data in the template file the way you want.
 * Secondly you’d want to format the output as strings, (with the formatting you
   would use for the shortcode, ) and then ouput them in the shortcode, using the
   WP do_shortcode() ; method.
 * Good luck 🙂
 *  [Paul van Zyl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pushplaybang/)
 * (@pushplaybang)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/external-data-sources/#post-3771139)
 * Hey Jann
 * does that satisfy your question ? can I help you in any other way at all ?
 * Let me know, otherwise I’ll close this topic as complete, thanks 🙂
 * Have a great week.
 * Paul
 *  [Paul van Zyl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pushplaybang/)
 * (@pushplaybang)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/external-data-sources/#post-3771148)
 * Closing this thread, contact me directly if you require further assistance 🙂

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘External Data Sources’ is closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [charts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/charts/)

 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Paul van Zyl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pushplaybang/)
 * Last activity: [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/external-data-sources/#post-3771148)
 * Status: resolved