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 already laid out the structure in a Google Sheet — group names in one column, associated video IDs in the next, one group per section. Some groups already exist in Spotlightr. Some don't yet. You need the new ones created, the video assignments updated, and the new group IDs written back into the sheet so you can reference them when building course pages.
This is the kind of task that sounds like it should take ten minutes and ends up taking two hours.
The bad version:
- Open Spotlightr, navigate to Groups, click "Create Group," type the first group name from the sheet, save.
- Copy the returned group ID from the URL or the settings panel, switch to the sheet, paste it into column C for that group's rows.
- Go back to Spotlightr. Navigate to the video for the first ID in that group. Edit its group assignment. Save.
- Repeat for every video ID in the section — then repeat the whole sequence for the next group.
You're supposed to be building curriculum, not doing database entry.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Google Sheet. 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 the sheet — from a single prompt.
Create a new Spotlightr group for each unique value in the "Course Topic" column, then write the returned group IDs back into the sheet next to each course topic name.
What You Get
- A new Spotlightr project group created for each unique value in the Course Topic column that doesn't already exist.
- The returned group ID written back into column C next to each course topic row.
- Groups that already exist in Spotlightr are not duplicated — SheetXAI checks for existing group names before creating.
- Any group creation that fails gets an error note in column C instead of a silent skip.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Group names in the sheet have inconsistent spacing and capitalization
"Module One," "module one," and "Module one " should all resolve to the same Spotlightr group, but they'll create duplicates if you send them as-is.
Before creating Spotlightr groups, normalize the values in the "Course Topic" column — 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 the videos to their new groups in the same pass
The sheet has group names in column A and video IDs in column B. You want groups created and videos assigned in one operation.
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 in column B belong to groups that already exist in Spotlightr
You only need to create the new ones. For existing groups, you just need the assignment update.
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 exist, 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 — how many groups were created vs already existed
Create Spotlightr groups for each unique value in column A (skip if already 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 course structure sheet with 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 a Google Sheet and the Spotlightr hub.