Maintaining updates for a bunch of WordPress sites with Google Spreadsheets

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Here’s a useful trick I’ve come up with, to maintain a list of WordPress
installations and easily see if they’re up to date.

Getting the currently installed version

Create a sheet with your domain names

[IMAGE: https://blog.omgmog.net/images/Screen%20Shot%202015-04-28%20at%2011.55.13.png]

In the second column, you’ll want a formula that uses ImportXML() to grab the
/feed/ for each domain, and then use REGEXEXTRACT() to extract the version
number:

=REGEXEXTRACT(ImportXML(CONCATENATE($A2,"/feed/"), "//generator"),"\?v=(.*)$")

This will give us, for example 4.2.1 from the <generator> field in the /feed/.

Checking against the latest release

Create a new empty sheet, then in cell A1 paste the following:

=IMPORTHTML("https://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/", "table", 1)

This will populate the sheet with the release data from the WordPress wiki
(https://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/). We only need the data in cell
A2.

Go back to your first sheet and in a new column, you can add a test to see if
the installed version is greater than or equal to the latest release. This will
give you TRUE or FALSE.

=GTE($C2, Sheet2!$A$2)

You can view a working version of this spreadsheet on Google Drive
(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1axN2jaxXZGHkC5tJy3we4ssp1Qvzfs7C8XQ9MNEJZZQ/edit?usp=sharing)

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Published April 28, 2015

Generated from the original post:
https://blog.omgmog.net/post/maintaining-updates-for-a-bunch-of-wordpress-sites-with-google-spreadsheets/


Max Glenister is an interface designer and senior full-stack developer from
Oxfordshire. He writes mostly about front-end development and technology.

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