The Scenario
You are a VP of Operations, three days into a new role. You inherited a SimpleKPI account with no categories — every KPI is floating uncategorized in a flat list of 60 items. You have a team kickoff on Thursday and you need the account organized before then.
Your predecessor left a Google Sheet with the category names and descriptions the company agreed on: Sales, Support, Finance, Operations, HR, Marketing, Product, and Logistics.
The bad version:
- Open SimpleKPI, navigate to category management
- Click "Add category," type the name, save
- Repeat for each of 8 categories
- Go back and realize you misspelled "Operations"
- Edit it, save again
- Still need to assign 60 KPIs to the right categories after this
- Thursday arrives and the account still looks like a flat list.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI reads your category sheet and creates every category in SimpleKPI in one pass.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in the Categories sheet using the name in column A. Write the new category ID or the error message into column B.
SheetXAI creates all 8 categories and writes the returned category IDs into column B. Now you have a sheet mapping category names to their SimpleKPI IDs — which you can use immediately to assign KPIs.
What You Get
A complete SimpleKPI category structure built from the sheet:
- 8 categories created — one API call per row, in one pass
- Column B filled — the SimpleKPI category ID for each created category, or the error if one failed
- A reusable ID map — the sheet now shows name-to-ID mappings you can use in follow-on KPI assignment prompts
The ID map in column B is immediately useful. Once categories are created, you can ask SheetXAI in the next prompt to assign each KPI to the right category using that mapping. The whole account structure comes together before Thursday.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Category setup sheets often have extra detail — descriptions, sort orders, parent-child relationships.
When each category needs a description
Your sheet has descriptions in column B and you want them stored in SimpleKPI, not just the names.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in this sheet using the name in column A and description in column B. Write the new category ID into column C.
When categories have a defined sort order
Your operations team cares about how categories are ordered in SimpleKPI's UI. Sort order is in column C.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in this sheet using the name in column A. Set the sort order to the value in column C. Write the returned category ID into column D.
When some categories already exist and should not be duplicated
You are adding to an account that already has some categories. You only want to create the missing ones.
List all existing SimpleKPI categories. Then look at column A in this sheet. For each name that does NOT already exist in SimpleKPI, create a new category. Write "Created" or "Already exists — ID: [id]" into column B.
When you need the full setup chain: create categories, then assign KPIs
You have category names in column A and a list of KPI IDs in column B (comma-separated). You want categories created and KPIs assigned in one run.
Create a SimpleKPI category for each row in this sheet using the name in column A. Write the returned category ID into column C. Then assign each KPI ID listed in column B to the category you just created. Write "Assigned" or errors into column D.
The pattern: chain the setup steps in one prompt. Create the structure and use it in the same pass.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any sheet with your KPI category names, then ask it to build the structure in SimpleKPI. The SimpleKPI integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to bulk-create KPIs from a definition sheet or the SimpleKPI in Google Sheets overview.