The Scenario
You're an online educator three weeks into a library reorganization. Eight course topics, each getting its own Spotlightr project group. You've laid out the structure in an Excel workbook — group names in column A, associated video IDs in column B, one group per section. Some groups exist in Spotlightr already. Some don't yet. You need the new ones created, the video assignments updated, and the group IDs written back into column C so you can reference them when building course pages.
The bad version:
- Open Spotlightr, navigate to Groups, click "Create Group," type the first group name from the workbook, save.
- Copy the returned group ID from the URL or settings panel, switch to Excel, paste it into column C.
- Go back to Spotlightr, navigate to the first video for that group, edit its assignment, save.
- Repeat for every video ID in the section — then for every subsequent group.
You're supposed to be building curriculum, not doing database entry for an afternoon.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Excel workbook. It reads your group names and video ID mappings, creates any missing Spotlightr groups, assigns videos to the right groups, and writes the returned group IDs back into column C — from a single prompt.
Read my Excel sheet where column A has group names and column B has video IDs — create any missing Spotlightr groups and write the new group ID into column C for each row.
What You Get
- A new Spotlightr project group created for each unique value in column A that doesn't already exist.
- The returned group ID written back into column C next to each row.
- Groups that already exist are not duplicated — SheetXAI checks for existing names before creating.
- Any group creation failure gets an error note in column C rather than a silent skip.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Group names in column A have inconsistent spacing and capitalization
Before creating Spotlightr groups, normalize the values in column A — trim whitespace and apply title case. Then create a group for each unique normalized value and write the group ID into column C.
You also need to assign videos to their new groups in the same pass
For each unique value in column A, create a Spotlightr group if it doesn't already exist and write the group ID into column C. Then assign each video ID in column B to the group in column A of the same row.
Some video IDs belong to groups that already exist in Spotlightr
For each unique group name in column A: if the group already exists in Spotlightr, fetch its ID and write it into column C; if it doesn't, create it and write the new ID into column C. Then assign each video ID in column B to the group ID now in column C.
You want a full audit row after the operation
Create Spotlightr groups for each unique value in column A (skip if existing), write group IDs into column C, and write "created" or "existing" into column D. After all rows are processed, write a summary into cell F1: total groups created and total already existing.
One prompt, one pass, and you have the full picture without opening the Spotlightr dashboard once.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your Excel workbook with course group names and video IDs already mapped out. Ask SheetXAI to create the missing Spotlightr groups and write back the IDs. See also: Bulk Create Spotlightr Videos From an Excel workbook and the Spotlightr hub.