Google Sheet Fetch lets a WhatsApp bot look up a row in a connected Google Sheet during a live conversation and reply using its values — an employee directory, a product catalog, an order tracker. Use this when a customer wants their bot to answer from data that lives in a spreadsheet instead of being hardcoded, and covers the easy-to-miss prerequisite: matching Subscriber Custom Fields must exist before you can map sheet columns to them.
Google Sheet Fetch lets a WhatsApp bot look something up in a Google Sheet in the middle of
a conversation, so it can reply with real information — instead of that information being
typed into the bot itself.Think of it like this: Google Sheet
Integration is the bot writing into your
sheet. Google Sheet Fetch is the opposite — the bot reading from your sheet.Example: say you keep an employee list in a Google Sheet. Someone messages the bot with an
Employee ID, and the bot looks that row up and replies with the person’s name, department, and
phone number — pulled straight from the sheet.The best part: if you edit the sheet — add a new employee, fix a phone number — the bot’s next
reply already uses the updated info. You don’t have to touch the bot at all. This makes it
great for anything that changes often: an employee directory, a price list, order status,
appointment schedules, inventory, student records, an FAQ list, branch info, or membership
details.
This is the step that’s easy to miss, and the most common reason Google Sheet Fetch shows an
error. Every column you plan to map under Assign must already exist as a Subscriber
Custom Field — if the field doesn’t exist yet, it won’t be available to select as a Data
Field, and the mapping (or the bot reply using it) will fail.
Custom Fields are created under WhatsApp → Subscriber Manager, not inside Settings &
Integration:
1
Open Manage Custom Fields
In Subscriber Manager, click Manage, then Manage Custom Fields.
2
Create a field for every column you'll assign
Click Create on the WhatsApp Subscriber Custom Fields page.
Give it a Custom Field Name and a Reply Type (e.g. Text, Phone, Email) matching
what the column holds.
3
Repeat for every field your reply will use
A real example set of custom fields, created ahead of time for an employee-lookup bot:
Connect a Google account and sheet (if you haven’t already)
Google Sheet Fetch reads from a sheet that’s already connected under Google Sheet
Integration — Create New Sheet or
Add Existing Sheet there first if you haven’t.
Give the connection an API Name, and pick the sheet from Google Sheet List — for
example, a sheet called Customer Data containing an employee directory:
Search Data — which sheet column to search by, and what to compare it against. Here,
Phone (the sheet column) is matched against Subscriber ID / Phone Number (the
subscriber’s own WhatsApp number) — so the bot automatically looks up the row for whoever is
messaging it, with no manual ID entry needed.
Assign — map every other column you want back to the Custom Field you created for it:
Employee ID → employee id, Name → Name, Email → Email, Department →
Department, Designation → Designation. Click + Map Data to add more pairs.
Click Verify Connection to confirm the sheet is reachable and every mapped field returns
real data.
If a Data Field you need isn’t in the dropdown, stop and go create it as a Subscriber
Custom Field first (see the prerequisite above) — don’t try to type a new name in on the fly.
Once the campaign is configured, the actual lookup happens inside a Keyword Replies flow, as a
Google Sheet Data Fetch flow step:
1
Start Bot Flow
Set a trigger, e.g. the keyword data with Exact keyword match.
2
Add a Google Sheet Data Fetch step
Pick the fetch campaign you configured above (e.g. Google Data). Use Test Google Sheet
New to try it against a real subscriber while building the flow.
3
Reply using the fetched fields
Add a Text step and reference each custom field wrapped in #...#:
Here are your detailsName: #Name#Employee id: #employee id#Department: #Department#Designation: #Designation#,Email: #Email#Thank You!
4
Save
Click Save (or Save Changes) on the flow, and Save in the top bar to publish it
to the connected WhatsApp number.
With the example data above, a subscriber whose WhatsApp number matches EMP001’s Phone gets:
Here are your detailsName: Rahul ReddyEmployee id: EMP001Department: ITDesignation: Software Engineer,Email: rahul@company.comThank You!
Create every Subscriber Custom Field before mapping it — this is the #1 cause of a broken
or erroring fetch.
Always click Verify Connection after mapping fields — a typo in a File Header (it must
match the sheet’s actual column header exactly) makes the fetch silently return no data
instead of erroring.
Keep sheet column headers unique and consistent — don’t rename a column without updating
the mapping.
Avoid duplicate values in the Search Column — if two rows share the same ID or phone
number, the fetch can return the wrong row.
Test the full bot flow (not just Verify Connection) before publishing, using Test Google
Sheet New inside the flow builder.
How do I look up a customer's order from a Google Sheet inside a bot flow?
Create a Google Sheet Fetch campaign, map the sheet’s phone-number column to the
subscriber’s phone number under Search Data, then map the columns you want back (e.g.
Customer Name, Order ID) under Assign to matching Subscriber Custom Fields. Add a
Google Sheet Data Fetch step in a Keyword Replies flow and reference the fields in your reply.
Why is my Google Sheet Fetch showing an error or not returning data?
The most common cause: one of the fields you mapped under Assign doesn’t exist yet as a
Subscriber Custom Field. Go to Subscriber Manager → Manage → Manage Custom Fields,
create it there first, then come back and map it.
What's the difference between Search Data and Assign?
Search Data tells ChatSyncs which sheet column to match against (how to find the right
row — usually the subscriber’s phone number). Assign tells it which columns to pull back,
and which Custom Field to store each one in.
Do I need to connect Google Sheets before I can fetch data from one?
Yes — Google Sheet Integration must be
connected first so ChatSyncs has access to the account that owns the sheet.
How do I actually use the fetched data in a WhatsApp reply?
Add a Google Sheet Data Fetch step to a Keyword Replies flow, then in the following Text
step, reference each field as #FieldName# — matching the Custom Field’s name exactly.