How to load data from Firebase Realtime Database to Google Sheets

Learn how to use Airbyte to synchronize your Firebase Realtime Database data into Google Sheets within minutes.

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Set up a Firebase Realtime Database connector in Airbyte

Connect to Firebase Realtime Database or one of 400+ pre-built or 10,000+ custom connectors through simple account authentication.

Set up Google Sheets for your extracted Firebase Realtime Database data

Select Google Sheets where you want to import data from your Firebase Realtime Database source to. You can also choose other cloud data warehouses, databases, data lakes, vector databases, or any other supported Airbyte destinations.

Configure the Firebase Realtime Database to Google Sheets in Airbyte

This includes selecting the data you want to extract - streams and columns -, the sync frequency, where in the destination you want that data to be loaded.

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How to Sync Firebase Realtime Database to Google Sheets Manually

1. Firebase Realtime Database:

   - Go to the [Firebase console](https://console.firebase.google.com/).

   - Select your project or create a new one.

   - Click on the Realtime Database section and set up your database.

   - Make sure you have data in your database to transfer.

   - Go to Project Settings > Service Accounts > Firebase Admin SDK and generate a new private key. This will download a JSON file with your service account credentials.

2. Google Sheets:

   - Create a new Google Sheet where you want to import your Firebase data.

   - Note down the Sheet ID from the URL (e.g., `https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/``Sheet_ID``/edit`).

1. In your Google Sheet, click on `Extensions` > `Apps Script`.

2. This will open a new tab with the Apps Script editor.

1. In the Apps Script editor, go to `Resources` > `Advanced Google services`.

2. Scroll down and enable the `Google Sheets API`.

3. Click on the `+` next to `Services` to add a new service.

4. Search for and add the `Admin SDK`.

1. In the Apps Script editor, replace the existing content with the following code:

```javascript

const sheetId = 'YOUR_GOOGLE_SHEET_ID'; // Replace with your Google Sheet ID

const firebaseUrl = 'YOUR_FIREBASE_DATABASE_URL'; // Replace with your Firebase Database URL

const privateKey = '-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\n...\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----\n'; // Replace with your private key from the JSON file

const clientEmail = 'your-service-account-email@...gserviceaccount.com'; // Replace with your service account email from the JSON file

function importDataFromFirebase() {

  const options = {

    method: 'GET',

    headers: {

      'Content-Type': 'application/json',

      'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + getFirebaseAccessToken(privateKey, clientEmail)

    }

  };

  const response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(firebaseUrl + '.json', options);

  const data = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());

  writeToSheet(data);

}

function getFirebaseAccessToken(privateKey, clientEmail) {

  const tokenUrl = 'https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token';

  const tokenPayload = {

    grant_type: 'urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:jwt-bearer',

    assertion: createJwt(privateKey, clientEmail)

  };

  const tokenOptions = {

    method: 'post',

    contentType: 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',

    payload: tokenPayload

  };

  const response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(tokenUrl, tokenOptions);

  const accessToken = JSON.parse(response.getContentText()).access_token;

  return accessToken;

}

function createJwt(privateKey, clientEmail) {

  const header = {

    alg: 'RS256',

    typ: 'JWT'

  };

  const now = Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000);

  const claimSet = {

    iss: clientEmail,

    scope: 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/firebase.database https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email',

    aud: 'https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token',

    exp: now + 3600,

    iat: now

  };

  const base64Header = Utilities.base64EncodeWebSafe(JSON.stringify(header));

  const base64ClaimSet = Utilities.base64EncodeWebSafe(JSON.stringify(claimSet));

  const signatureInput = `${base64Header}.${base64ClaimSet}`;

  const signature = Utilities.computeRsaSha256Signature(signatureInput, privateKey);

  const base64Signature = Utilities.base64EncodeWebSafe(signature);

  return `${signatureInput}.${base64Signature}`;

}

function writeToSheet(data) {

  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById(sheetId).getActiveSheet();

  const rows = [];

  // Assuming data is an object where keys are the record IDs

  for (const id in data) {

    const record = data[id];

    // Assuming each record is an object with properties you want to extract

    rows.push([id, record.property1, record.property2]); // Replace with actual property names

  }

  // Clear existing content

  sheet.clearContents();

  // Assuming the first row contains headers

  const headers = ['ID', 'Property 1', 'Property 2']; // Replace with actual headers

  sheet.appendRow(headers);

  // Append new rows to the sheet

  rows.forEach(row => sheet.appendRow(row));

}

```

2. Replace the placeholders (`YOUR_GOOGLE_SHEET_ID`, `YOUR_FIREBASE_DATABASE_URL`, `privateKey`, and `clientEmail`) with your actual Google Sheet ID, Firebase Database URL, and the service account details you obtained earlier.

1. Click on the play button (`▶`) in the Apps Script toolbar to run the `importDataFromFirebase` function.

2. The script will request authorization the first time you run it. Follow the prompts to grant the necessary permissions.

3. Once the script has completed, your Google Sheet should be populated with data from your Firebase Realtime Database.

If you want to automatically update the Google Sheet with Firebase data at regular intervals:

1. In the Apps Script editor, click on the clock icon (`⏲`) to open the `Triggers` page.

2. Click `+ Add Trigger` in the bottom right corner.

3. Set up the trigger for the `importDataFromFirebase` function, choosing the frequency with which you want the script to run.

How to Sync Firebase Realtime Database to Google Sheets Manually - Method 2:

FAQs

ETL, an acronym for Extract, Transform, Load, is a vital data integration process. It involves extracting data from diverse sources, transforming it into a usable format, and loading it into a database, data warehouse or data lake. This process enables meaningful data analysis, enhancing business intelligence.

The Firebase Real-time Database allows you to build rich, collaborative applications by allowing secure access to the database directly from client-side code. The Firebase Real-time Database is a NoSQL database from which we can store and sync the data between our users in real-time. Firebase Real-time Database is a solution that stores data in the cloud and offers an easy way to sync your data among various devices, and it is a cloud-hosted database. Data is stored as JSON and synchronized in real-time to every connected client.

Firebase's API gives access to a wide range of data types, including:  

1. Real-time database: This includes data that is stored in real-time and can be accessed and updated in real-time.  
2. Cloud Firestore: This is a NoSQL document database that stores data in documents and collections.  
3. Authentication: This includes user data such as email, password, and authentication tokens.  
4. Cloud Storage: This includes data such as images, videos, and other files that are stored in the cloud.  
5. Cloud Functions: This includes data that is processed by serverless functions in the cloud.  
6. Cloud Messaging: This includes data related to push notifications and messaging.  
7. Analytics: This includes data related to user behavior and app usage.  
8. Performance Monitoring: This includes data related to app performance and user experience.  
9. Remote Config: This includes data related to app configuration and feature flags.  

Overall, Firebase's API provides access to a wide range of data types that are essential for building modern web and mobile applications.

This can be done by building a data pipeline manually, usually a Python script (you can leverage a tool as Apache Airflow for this). This process can take more than a full week of development. Or it can be done in minutes on Airbyte in three easy steps: 
1. Set up Firebase to Google Sheets as a source connector (using Auth, or usually an API key)
2. Choose a destination (more than 50 available destination databases, data warehouses or lakes) to sync data too and set it up as a destination connector
3. Define which data you want to transfer from Firebase to Google Sheets and how frequently
You can choose to self-host the pipeline using Airbyte Open Source or have it managed for you with Airbyte Cloud. 

ELT, standing for Extract, Load, Transform, is a modern take on the traditional ETL data integration process. In ELT, data is first extracted from various sources, loaded directly into a data warehouse, and then transformed. This approach enhances data processing speed, analytical flexibility and autonomy.

ETL and ELT are critical data integration strategies with key differences. ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) transforms data before loading, ideal for structured data. In contrast, ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) loads data before transformation, perfect for processing large, diverse data sets in modern data warehouses. ELT is becoming the new standard as it offers a lot more flexibility and autonomy to data analysts.

What should you do next?

Hope you enjoyed the reading. Here are the 3 ways we can help you in your data journey:

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