Sail JADA — Engineering Log

Technical work on sailjada.com and the JADA booking systems

Deploying Receipt Management for QuickDumpNow and Automating Port Sheet Generation with Google Sheets Integration

What Was Done

This session involved two parallel infrastructure improvements: deploying a receipt management system for the QuickDumpNow trailer rental business and completing the automated port sheet generation pipeline for JADA sailing operations. Both projects required cross-stack integration between static site hosting, serverless functions, and Google Workspace APIs.

QuickDumpNow Books/Receipts Deployment

The QuickDumpNow trailer rental business needed a centralized location to track rental receipts. We deployed a receipt management page to https://quickdumpnow.com/books.

File Structure Changes

  • Modified: /Users/cb/Documents/repos/sites/quickdumpnow.com/books/index.html — Updated the books landing page with corrected model IDs and styling to match the site design system
  • Modified: /Users/cb/Documents/repos/sites/quickdumpnow.com/robots.txt — Added blocking rules for the books directory to prevent indexing of receipt data

Deployment Pipeline

The deployment followed this sequence:

  1. Uploaded books/index.html to the S3 bucket as a single object
  2. Uploaded the same content to the bare books/ key to support pretty URL routing without file extensions
  3. Updated robots.txt in the S3 root to block crawler access to the books section
  4. Invalidated CloudFront distribution cache for both /books and /books/* paths

Why this approach: CloudFront was configured with a custom error response that redirects all 404s to the homepage. By uploading to both the explicit object path and the directory path, we ensure the content serves correctly whether requests arrive as /books or /books/. The robots.txt blocking prevents sensitive receipt data from being indexed by search engines—critical for a business with customer information.

Cache invalidation timing: CloudFront invalidations typically complete within 30–60 seconds. The page is now live and accessible.

JADA Port Sheet Automation

The port sheet system automates monthly reporting of sailing charters and expenses for JADA. This session completed the token refresh pipeline and added the first April 2026 entry ($1,845.72 charter payment from yesterday).

Infrastructure Components

  • Primary script: /Users/cb/Documents/repos/tools/jada_port_sheet.py — Core port sheet generation and email distribution
  • New authentication utility: /Users/cb/Documents/repos/tools/reauth_jada_calendar.py — OAuth 2.0 token refresh handler
  • Apps Script: /Users/cb/Documents/repos/sites/queenofsandiego.com/PortSheetReporter.gs — Google Sheets data aggregation
  • Credential files: Two separate OAuth2 credential JSON files — one for Drive API (port sheet data), one for Calendar API (event queries)

Token Authentication Challenge

The system maintains separate OAuth tokens for Drive and Calendar APIs. During this session, we discovered a token refresh issue:

  • Existing GCAL_REFRESH_TOKEN was stale and no longer valid
  • The reauth_jada_calendar.py script implements OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow locally (port 8765 callback) to generate fresh tokens
  • Process cleanup required: killed existing Python process holding port 8765 to free the local callback endpoint

Why separate tokens: While both APIs use the same Google account, maintaining separate client IDs and refresh tokens provides better security isolation. The Drive credentials access file storage; Calendar credentials query events. If one is compromised, the other remains protected.

Port Sheet Data Structure

The JADA Port Log 2026 spreadsheet (hosted in Google Drive) contains multiple tabs:

  • Template tab: Contains the standardized entry format and example data
  • Monthly tabs: March 2026, April 2026, etc. — each containing charter and expense entries
  • Data format: Each row contains: Month, Date, Vessel, Captain, Charter Type, Passengers, Cost, Amount Paid, Notes

The April 2026 tab was created during this session and populated with the new entry: Joseph Zurek charter yielding $1,845.72.

Spreadsheet ID Mapping

A critical discovery: the sheetId (tab identifier) differs from the spreadsheet ID (file identifier). Using Python's Google Sheets API:


# Read sheet metadata to find correct sheetId for target tab
sheets_service.spreadsheets().get(spreadsheetId=SPREADSHEET_ID).execute()

# Append data to specific tab using batchUpdate with correct sheetId
request_body = {
    'requests': [{
        'appendCells': {
            'sheetId': SHEET_ID_FOR_APRIL,
            'rows': [...],
            'fields': '*'
        }
    }]
}

Why this matters: The Sheets API uses two IDs: the spreadsheet contains multiple sheets, each with a unique ID. Specifying the wrong sheetId silently fails or appends to the wrong tab. We resolved this by querying the spreadsheet metadata to map tab names to their sheetIds.

Excel File Handling

The original port sheet template was provided as an Excel .xls file. To preserve formatting and structure while adding new entries:

  • Installed openpyxl package to read/write Excel files programmatically
  • Used xlrd to inspect row heights and column widths from the original file
  • Built a new .xlsx matching the original structure: preserved the Template tab, kept March data intact, created April tab with the new charter entry
  • Uploaded the updated file back to the same Drive file ID via the Drive API

Email Distribution

The port sheet is distributed to stakeholders (Edwin, Maria, and Caro) via the email-sending function embedded in jada_port_sheet.py. This session verified the email pipeline and sent the April 2026 port sheet with the new charter entry to all recipients.

Lambda Deployment

The refreshed calendar token was pushed to the AWS Lambda environment:

  • Updated the GCAL_REFRESH_TOKEN environment variable in the Lambda function configuration
  • Verified the token works by running a dry-run of the port sheet script with the new token
  • Confirmed that the Calendar API can now successfully query charter events

Key Architectural Decisions

  • Dual OAuth tokens: Separation of concerns between Drive and Calendar access improves security and auditability
  • Local OAuth callback server: The reauth_jada_calendar.py