How to Reduce Google App Script Service Calls

Question

This script here renames the sheetnames with the value in A1. I manage a school database with over 150 sheets. The script is throwing a maximum time execution timeout error. I have read on the forums here that you can reduce service calls. This here Google app script timeout ~ 5 minutes? looks like a solution but I can't in the life of me wrap my head around what's going on.

I should probably mention that I am a complete noob and your help will be of immense help.

function onEdit() {
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
var allsheets = ss.getSheets();

// Array holding the names of the sheets to exclude from the execution
var exclude ="Sheet1","Sheet2","Sheet3","Article","Frontpage","Logos","Sheet4","Sheet5","Sheet6","Sheet10"];

for(var s=10;s<allsheets.length;s++) {
var sheet = allsheets[s];
var oldName = sheet.getName();
var newName = sheet.getRange(1,1).getValue();
if (newName.toString().length>0 && newName !== oldName) {
sheet.setName(newName);

// Stop iteration execution if the condition is meet.
if(exclude.indexOf(sheet.getName())==-1) continue;
}

} // end of loop

} // end of function

Kindly help me reduce the number of service calls the script is making or a faster way to avoid the timeout error.

//Updated Script

//Sample code below generating error missing ) after condition

function testArray() {
    var arr = ["Sh1","Sh2","Sh3","Sh4","Sh5","Sh6","Sh7","Sh8","Sh9","Sh10"];  //etc etc
    var res = [];

    arr.forEach(function (element,index) {
        if(index>9) {
            var sheet = allsheets[s];
            var oldName = sheet.getName();
            var newName = sheet.getRange(1,1).getValue(); 

            if (newName.toString().length>0 && newName !== oldName) {
                sheet.setName(newName); // Stop iteration execution if the condition is meet. 
                if(exclude.indexOf(sheet.getName())==-1}) continue; //iterable code goes here; 
            }
        // }
     }); 
}

Answer 1

First of all, get rid of unnecessary calls - did you consider the splice() part of my answer to your previous question?

allsheets.splice(0,10); //0-based start and end indexes;

If excluded sheet names can be encountered anywhere, keep your exclude Array and if statement (btw, there seems to be a typo in your sample - the Array declaration misses an opening bracket).

Regardless of how you exclude your first 10 sheets, the call to stop iteration becomes overkill as you invoke getName() method allsheets.length times (thus, 150 unnecessary method calls) - reference the newName variable instead.

You can further reduce calls by checking for the condition before calling the setName() method (assuming you do not want to do anything is new name is in exclude Array).

Then, use the for loop to do the same manipulations (note that in case the Array is filtered using splice(), index s should be 0):

for(var s=10; s<allsheets.length; s++) {
  var sheet = allsheets[s];
  var oldName = sheet.getName();
  var newName = sheet.getRange(1,1).getValue();

  //this reduces setName() calls if you don't need to set reserved names;
  if(exclude.indexOf(newName)!==-1) { continue; }

  if (newName.toString().length>0 && newName !== oldName) {
    sheet.setName(newName);
  }
}

Alternatively, you can use a forEach to make manipulations you want. This is how the whole function will look like using splice() and forEach():

function testArray() { 

  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
  var arr = ss.getSheets();

  arr.splice(0,10); //removes first 10 Sheets from Array;

  var exclude = []; //fill with unchangeable names;

  arr.forEach(function (sheet,index) { //iterates over Array of Sheets;

      var oldName = sheet.getName(); 
      var newName = sheet.getRange(1,1).getValue(); 

      if(newName.toString().length>0 && newName!==oldName) { 

        //Move to next iteration if new name should be excluded;
        if(exclude.indexOf(newName)===-1) {
          sheet.setName(newName); //set name otherwise;
        }

      }

  }); // end of loop 

} // end of function