How to Automate Certificate Generation With Google Sheets, Make and Templated

You just wrapped up an amazing cake-baking workshop. Your students loved every second of it. They learned, they baked, they conquered. And now, it’s time to give them the certificates of completion.

But here’s the problem.

You have 100 students eagerly waiting for their certificates. Manually creating each one — Adding names, and achievements, and saving them one by one?

That will take hours — maybe even days — of clicking, typing, and formatting.

And let’s be honest, you didn’t start this workshop to become a full-time certificate designer.

But what if you could generate ALL 100 certificates in just a few clicks?

That’s exactly what you’ll learn today.

With Google Sheets, Make.com, and Templated API, you’ll automate the entire process — names, details, and even design — without lifting a finger after setup.

Whether you run online courses, workshops, or training sessions, this method will save you time and effort while keeping things professional.

Let’s get started.

What You’ll Need?

To create the automation effortlessly you need to do this first:

1. Create an account on Make.com (you will get 1000 free credits for testing it)
2. Account on Templated (We will use the Image generation API key from here)

3. Google Sheets access

Step 1: Choose a Certificate Template on Templated

After signing up for Templated, which you can do from here, go to the template gallery where you will find built-in templates.

You also have the option to design your own using its template editor or export as a layer any other designing software like Canva.

However, for our tutorial, we’ll use a pre-made template from here for this tutorial.

You can choose your template and then click on Customize Template.

You will find the selected template in your Templated account dashboard.

For customization, you’ll have access to an editor that works similarly to design tools like Canva. Inside the editor, you’ll find layers — each representing different elements of the certificate, such as text, images, or shapes. You can modify, select, or customize these layers as needed.

In this automation, we will change the recipient’s name (layer — “name”) and achievement (layer — “details”) dynamically across all certificates.

Other elements, like the date, signature, or any static text, will remain the same for our automation, you can add more layers of text, shapes & images.

For our use case, which is to have a different name and different achievement description, we would only dynamically change the name and description that is just below the name. (See the above image)

To keep things organized, you can also rename the layers to make them easier to identify during the automation process.

Step 2: Set Up the Google Sheet

Once your certificate template is ready, the next step is setting up your Google Sheet. Since we’ll be automating the name and achievement fields in each certificate, our Spreadsheet will have these:

• Column A — With All the Names (People who attended your cake workshop)
• Column B — Respective Achievement Statements for Each Person
• Column C — Image URLs (this will be filled automatically after certificate generation)

Step 3: Create Make Scenario

Sign in to your Make.com account. As you move your cursor over the left dashboard, the full menu will pop up. Locate Scenarios, then click on Create Scenario to start a new automation.

First Module: Google Sheets ➡️ Watch New Rows

This will be the trigger for our automation, the scenario will watch new rows with a preset limit defined in this module here.

Access your prepared Google Sheet by Spreadsheet ID or via other methods.

For this tutorial, we have kept 20 Names and respective achievements, and therefore I have set the limit to 20 here.

Second Module: Templated (Create a Render)

Now, click on “+” to add a new module.

To have its access you would need the API_KEY of your account. You can get your API_KEY under the no-code integration tab on the left.

Click on “Create a Connection” and add your API key.

From the dropdown menu, select your template name under Template ID.

After selecting the template, it’s time to map the layers we want to automate. We will be modifying the “name” and “details” layers, as explained in Step 1.

Here’s how to do it.

For the name, we want it from column A of our spreadsheet.

Scroll and map the second layer.

After mapping layers, click on “Save”.

Third Module: Google Sheets ➡️ Update a Row

Now, click on “+” to add another module called “Update a Row.”

This step ensures that once a certificate is generated, its corresponding template URL is added back to the Google Sheet.

Here is how you can fill details in this module:

By mapping the row numbers properly, the automation knows exactly where to insert the generated certificate URL.

In the “Image URLs” field, map the “URL” which will be the output from the previous module (Templated).

After saving this, the automation is complete. Now, it’s time to test it.

Testing our Scenario

Right-click on the first module and select “Choose where to start”.

Select “Choose Manually”, scroll down and select the first row and save.

Now, click on “Run”.

Here’s a GIF file that shows how our rows are updated with the URL of each certificate.

Check your Google Sheet now — it should be populated with certificate image URLs, reflecting the automated changes for each student’s name and achievement.

Hurray! Our certificates are ready!

Conclusion

In the same way, you can automate image generation for event badges, social media graphics, product labels, invitations, or any other bulk image creation needs.

With Templated image generation API and Make’s seamless integrations, you can scale your visual content creation effortlessly, saving time and effort on repetitive design tasks.

We do have a free certificate generation tool, that you can use for free & create a single certificate every time.