How to represent a table using excel data when clicked on a location in Google Earth Pro? - kml

Question

I am building a map on Google Earth Pro to visualize political workers' data in a specific area. I have designed the basic elements in kml but the data used is hard coded in the kml file itself. I want to automate the process so that anyone can change the data in the master excel sheet and it gets reflected on Google Earth because the booth workers keep changing in every area for every election.
How can I fetch data from an excel sheet and represent it in a tabular format on Google Earth?
Sharing a snippet from the kml file:
`<Placemark>
<name>1,Dehradun</name>
<description><[CDATA[<div><b>PARTY WORKERS</b><br></div>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr><br></tr><tr><td><b>SNO</b><br></td><td><b>NAME</b><br></td><td><b>CONTACT</b><br></td><td><b>COMMENTS</b><br></td><td><b>WORK ASSIGNED</b><br></td></tr>
<tr><td>1<br></td><td>Member1<br></td><td>9917973599<br></td><td>GOOD WORKER<br></td><td>BOOTH MGMT<br></td></tr>
<tr><td>2<br></td><td>Member2<br></td><td>8958644329<br></td><td>LAZY<br></td><td>MAKE PHONE CALLS<br></td></tr>
<tr><td>3<br></td><td>Member3<br></td><td>7894512547<br></td><td>SMART<br></td><td>DATA MGMT<br></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>INFLUENCERS</b><br></div>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr><br></tr><tr><td><b>SNO</b><br></td><td><b>NAME</b><br></td><td><b>CONTACT</b><br></td><td><b>COMMENTS</b><br></td><td><b>WORK ASSIGNED</b><br></td></tr>
<tr><td>1<br></td><td>Influencer1<br></td><td>9917973599<br></td><td>HIGH INFLUENCE<br></td><td>BOOTH MGMT<br></td></tr>
<tr><td>2<br></td><td>Influencer2<br></td><td>8958644329<br></td><td>ENTIRE BOOTH<br></td><td>NO WORK ASSIGNED<br></td></tr>
<tr><td>3<br></td><td>Influencer3<br></td><td>7894512547<br></td><td>SMART MAN<br></td><td>DATA MGMT<br></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table></description>
<styleUrl>#__managed_style_053287BE6F14D9C2C7B8</styleUrl>
<Point>
<coordinates>78.032188,30.316496,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>`
Tried Spreadsheet Mapper V3.2 earlier but it doesn't seem to work now. Found out online that it has been discontinued.
I want this kind of output but it should come from an excel sheet instead of being hard coded:
enter image description here

Answer 1

In order to update a KML file from a spreadsheet, you'll need a server of some kind that can re-generate the KML when the spreadsheet is updated (like Spreadsheet Mapper used to do using Apps Scripts). This is not something that is "built in" to Google Earth, so there's not a simple solution.
That said, Google My Maps recently launched a feature where you can update a layer in your MyMap based on changing data in a spreadsheet. For info see this medium post:
https://medium.com/google-earth/new-my-maps-features-make-it-easier-to-share-maps-update-datasets-and-more-965ed0b48875
and this documentation page:
https://support.google.com/mymaps/answer/3024836
I'm not if it will be easy or even possible to update the data behind your custom balloon layout, but it's probably worth a shot. If you get it to work, then you can either have your users view the data directly in My Maps, or you can try getting the NetworkLink KML for the MyMap, and viewing that in Earth.