Google Spreadsheet Generator

Differences between a service account and a user account

Introduction

Welcome to the Google Spreadsheet App! Your efficient solution for exporting Akeneo data directly into an easy-to-use spreadsheet.

With just a few clicks, you can export families with their attributes and products with their data, giving you a clear, organized view of your catalog. The generated spreadsheet makes it simple to review, share, or further process your data — whether for reporting, collaboration, or bulk editing. Streamline your data management with the Google Spreadsheet App and keep your product information accessible and actionable.

Google Service Account

Background

A service account is a special kind of account used by an application or a virtual machine (VM) instance, not a person. Applications use service accounts to make authorized API calls, authorized as either the service account itself, or as Google Workspace or Cloud Identity users through domain-wide delegation.

A service account is identified by its email address, which is unique to the account.

Differences between a service account and a user account

Service accounts differ from user accounts in a few key ways:

Service accounts do not have passwords, and cannot log in via browsers or cookies.
Service accounts are associated with private/public RSA key-pairs that are used for authentication to Google.
You can let other users or service accounts impersonate a service account.
Service accounts are not members of your Google Workspace domain, unlike user accounts. For example, if you share assets with all members in your Google Workspace domain, they will not be shared with service accounts. Similarly, any assets created by a service account cannot be owned or managed by Google Workspace or Cloud Identity admins. This doesn't apply when using domain-wide delegation, because API calls are authorized as the impersonated user, not the service account itself.

Each service account is associated with two sets of public/private RSA key pairs that are used to authenticate to Google: Google-managed keys, and user-managed keys.

Why we use it

We will use the service account to create en update spreadsheets through the api.

Creating a service account

Create a new Google project. Go to Google Cloud Platform https://console.cloud.google.com/ and select IAM & Admin -> Service Accounts.

Select Create.

Provide a project name.

Create a service account.

Provide a service account name. Do not confuse it with your Google account e-mail. This field will be present in the JSON file generated when creating a private key under the "client_email" name.

Select "Create".